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Tuesday, November 28, 2000
Can't keep a good Duke or ACC down
By Pat Forde
Special to ESPN.com
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Superiority complexes have their place in the world. How would we recognize Yankees fans, Texans and Mercedes-Benz owners without them?
And where, for that matter, would backers of Atlantic Coast Conference basketball -- Billyus packerus, identifiable by the permanently upturned nose -- be without their self-congratulatory smugness?
They've got it back now, with good reason. With three preseason top 10 teams and the mid-level programs ready to rise again, ACC basketball has returned to its accustomed place in the rich oppressor class. It once again is looking down on college basketball's proletariat.
|  | | Coach K and his Devils may have a few more challengers this season in the ACC. |
But we saw a defrocked ACC the last couple of seasons, and it wasn't pretty. It was like watching the Kennedys panhandle.
The league plummeted off its perch atop the sport and landed with a splat in mediocrity, disturbing the ecosystem on Planet Hoops. It put only three teams in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season -- the fewest since 1979, when there were only 48 teams in the field, and Bird and Magic were running around in tight britches. Even un-regal Conference USA got four teams in the Dance, as Duke's Mike Krzyzewski unconvincingly lobbied for teams he bludgeoned to be admitted.
And once again, the regular-season race was devoid of drama. Duke's hegemony extended through a third consecutive season, taking the smoke out of Tobacco Road rivalries and leaving us to wonder whether the Blue Devils were that good or everyone else was that bad.
Certainly, any conference would be happy to have a representative in the Final Four, and the ACC did it again in 2000 with North Carolina. But the Tar Heels' March run only made everyone ask again why they were so god-awful in November, December, January and February. I mean, 18-14 seasons are more the domain of UNC-Charlotte than UNC-Chapel Hill.
The ACC's other tournament teams, Duke and Maryland, both met ignoble ends.
The young Blue Devils were eliminated by the equally peach-fuzzed Florida Gators in the Sweet 16, and Billy Donovan outflanked Krzyzewski late in the game. It's hard to niggle with Duke's prodigious recent success, but it HAS lost three consecutive NCAA Tournament games as big favorites: to Kentucky in 1998, Connecticut in '99 and Florida last spring.
As for Maryland? The Terrapins crawled into their shell in a thoroughly humiliating 35-point loss to previously dysfunctional UCLA, adding to Gary Williams' pronounced lack of NCAA Tournament success.
So the game's old money league arrives in the new millennium with something to prove. And the talent to prove it.
Duke, with its recruiting on autopilot, stands alongside Arizona as the national title favorites (if being a November favorite means anything in such a chaotic sport). The Blue Devils want for nothing, save perhaps someone with a Laettner-like killer instinct.
North Carolina, after a clumsy couple of weeks fumbling around for a successor to Bill Guthridge, appears to have a good one in Matt Doherty. He brings his 1982 national championship ring back to campus to coach a team with everything but a proven point guard. For the first time in a few years, the Tar Heels appear capable of looking Duke in the eye and returning the buzz to the nation's preeminent rivalry.
Maryland lost nobody and brings in a couple of impact players in transfer Byron Mouton and freshman Chris Wilcox. Now it must overcome its own underachieving history.
Best of all, the midsection of the league is turning flab into muscle. Virginia, North Carolina State and Wake Forest are all eyeballing 20-win seasons and returns to the Dance.
Winning the NIT (Wake did it last spring) isn't the ACC's idea of a banner year. This year the aristocrats have a strong shot at the banner everyone wants -- the one earned in Minneapolis in the spring.
It's good to be king, especially when you've been away for a while. The ACC is returning to its throne, noses upturned and power back.
Ranking the Conferences
1. Atlantic Coast
Good news: With Wake Forest, Virginia and North Carolina State all on the rebound, the league should be back to its smug, six-bid self this year.
Bad news: There still might not be anyone good enough to challenge Duke, which has sucked the drama out of the league the last three years by going 46-2 in conference games.
2. Southeastern
Good news: Had a team in the national championship game for the seventh time in the last eight years in 2000. Interstate 75 corridor connecting Lexington to Knoxville to Gainesville is nearly as strong a path as Tobacco Road.
Bad news: This year's lead sled dog is Tennessee, not exactly the Lion of March. Last SEC Tournament title came in 1979, and the Volunteers have never made an NCAA regional final.
3. Big Ten
Good news: The 2000 body of work includes the league's first national title in 11 years; fifty percent occupancy of the Final Four for a second straight year; and three representatives in the Elite Eight. And now there's no Bob Knight.
Bad news: Northwestern, a 25-game loser last year, continues to refuse dropping to Division III.
4. Pacific-10
Good news: Nobody in America has more talent than Arizona. At USC, the basketball team is better than the football team.
Bad news: With Oregon regrouping, the league's power evaporates north of Palo Alto.
5. Big East
Good news: With Eddie Griffin, Omar Cook, Michael Bradley and three studly new UConn Huskies hitting the floor, nobody recruited better for this season than this league.
Bad news: Does anyone here qualify as a legitimate national title candidate?
6. Big 12
Good news: Roy Williams stayed, and Kansas should be back to its regal self after a couple of years of slippage.
Bad news: There's nobody to challenge the Jayhawks. Oklahoma, Iowa State and Missouri are national 20-30 teams, and that's it.
7. Conference USA
Good news: This is a better league when Memphis matters, and it does now. John Calipari's arrival ups the coaching IQ appreciably.
Bad news: With big dog Cincinnati having lost much of its bite, the league is counting on Pat Kennedy (gulp) to guide its most talented team.
8. Mountain West
Good news: A league already blessed with pretty good big men -- UNLV's Kaspars Kambala, Utah's Nate Althoff and Wyoming's Ugo Uzedue -- gets better with Duke transfer Chris Burgess joining the Utes.
Bad news: Air Force Academy aspires to break into the national Top 200.
9. Atlantic 10
Good news: Thirteen of the top 16 scorers from a year ago are back.
Bad news: With Temple slightly off, there's not a Top 25 team in sight.
10. Western Athletic
Good news: Tulsa carried the league's banner proudly in a 32-5 season and regional final appearance.
Bad news: That was last year, when Tulsa had more players and a different coach.
Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com
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