Prior to the 2022 Big Dance commencing, Syracuse basketball head coach Jim Boeheim said on ESPN’s First Take that he thought the Atlantic Coast Conference would fare well in this season’s March Madness.
Good call, Jim.
Yeah, it stinks that the Orange didn’t go dancing this March, but how about the overall performance of the ACC at this juncture? Save for the magical run by Saint Peter’s out of Jersey City, N.J., and the Sweet 16 bow-out of No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga, from my point of view, the ACC’s showing has been THE story of the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
As the Elite Eight games were set to start on Saturday evening, the ACC has three squads still remaining in the once 68-team field. For a little context, the four “best” leagues during the 2021-22 campaign – the Big Ten Conference, the Southeastern Conference, the Big 12 Conference, and the Big East Conference – have a combined three groups in the regional-final pairings.
Syracuse basketball didn’t make March Madness, but the ACC is crushing things.
In the West Region, No. 2 seed Duke will battle No. 4 seed Arkansas. In the East Region, No. 8 seed North Carolina will face No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s, as the Peacocks are the first No. 15 seed EVER to make the Elite Eight.
No. 1 seed Kansas will play No. 10 seed Miami in the Midwest Region, while in the South Region, it’s a match-up of No. 2 seed Villanova and No. 5 seed Houston.
If my math is correct, the league break-downs are as follows: three from the ACC (Duke, Miami, UNC), one from the Big 12 (Kansas), one from the SEC (Arkansas), one from the Big East (Villanova), one from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Saint Peter’s), and one from the American Athletic Conference (Houston).
https://twitter.com/LoudHouseFS/status/1507696640353873921?cxt=HHwWgsC91eaGtewpAAAA
Granted, for much of the 2021-22 regular season, the ACC only had one squad, Duke, ranked in the top-25 major polls. So the chatter about the ACC being “down,” I guess had some merit.
In recent days, and in recent weeks, I’ve seen a lot of spirited and thoughtful debate among my fellow Syracuse basketball fans about regular-stanza success versus NCAA Tournament success, as it relates to the Orange and just generally speaking.
Naturally, I want the ‘Cuse to thrive in regular seasons and in March, but if I had to choose one or the other, I would always prefer extended Big Dance runs.
For me, the same applies to the whole of the ACC. Yeah, our conference didn’t have more than one highly ranked member, those Blue Devils, for the majority of the 2021-22 regular campaign.
But in the Elite Eight, a trio of ACC teams is still standing. So my question is: will we all remember that “so-so” regular season for the ACC in 2021-22, or that this league saw three of its members advance to the regional finals (or perhaps further)?
I’ll go with the latter.
Oh, and by the way, if somehow, someway, Duke and its retiring head coach, the legendary Mike Krzyzewski, end up squaring off with the Blue Devils’ most storied rival, North Carolina, in the Final Four – good grief. The Twitter takes will be glorious.