Syracuse basketball demolished North Carolina in the 2020 ACC Tournament’s second round, which would amount to the last game played in that event.
Before the Orange had the opportunity to suit up versus Louisville in the tourney’s quarter-finals, Atlantic Coast Conference officials halted the event, just like every other league did, as the novel coronavirus pandemic brought the worldwide sports landscape to a virtual halt last March. The 2020 Big Dance would not occur.
Fast-forward to the present, and the 2020-21 college basketball season is moving along, albeit with many game postponements and teams going on basketball-related pauses due to Covid-19 protocols, including the ‘Cuse.
NCAA officials are planning the entirety of their 2021 March Madness to transpire in the state of Indiana, to minimize travel for the teams participating.
It appears that post-season conference tourneys, including the ACC Tournament, will happen, although the pandemic makes everything so fluid that it wouldn’t surprise me if some, or all, of them ultimately get nixed.
But if the ACC Tournament does proceed, it also wouldn’t surprise me if some league members opt-out. The 2021 ACC tourney, by the way, is slated for March 9-13 in Greensboro, N.C., conference officials announced back in November.
Syracuse basketball could see other ACC teams skip the conference tournament.
Several ACC head coaches, including Louisville’s Chris Mack and Pittsburgh’s Jeff Capel, have voiced some of their thoughts on the upcoming league tourney, per an article from 247Sports’ Dean Straka.
In essence, the discussion centers on whether teams that are locks for the 2021 NCAA Tournament will risk playing in their conference tourneys, or opt-out of them.
It’s entirely logical, reasonable and understandable if some squads do this. That’s because if they go to their conference tournaments, and a Covid-19 issue arises, it could threaten their ability to compete in March Madness.
So if you’re a Gonzaga, a Baylor, a Villanova, for example, or one of the best teams in the ACC such as Virginia, is it worth the risk to travel to your respective league tourney? Probably not.
But here’s where things could get problematic. Let’s say you’re a bubble bunch, like the Orange. The ACC Tournament could provide an opportunity to spring a few upsets over highly ranked foes, and that might be the difference-maker in getting an invite or getting left out.
If the top-tier groups in the ACC don’t play in the conference tourney, then this erases one or more chances for bubble teams to notch additional marquee wins.
Then again, if you take care of business in the regular season and secure sufficient high-quality conquests, a post-season league tournament becomes less important, so to speak.
The 2020-21 term in college basketball is like no other, and we’re all taking this stanza one day at a time. Should premier conference squads bail on the ACC Tournament, I get it. But that doesn’t make it altogether fair.