When the ACC's nine head coaches got together for their annual media day back in October, they all agreed on one thing.
Well, two things, if you count the consensus that North Carolina would cake-walk to the ACC title.
Hey, they're basketball coaches, not Jimmy the Greek.
What they also agreed on was a party line, no, a rallying cry. It went something like this: In spite of anything you might have read, heard, seen, touched or smelled over the past two years, the ACC is not in decline. Why? Because we say so.
Mike Krzyzewski called it "criminal." Dave Odom moaned about a "tidal wave" of anti-ACCism. Herb Sendek scratched his temple and shot reporters a "You-explain-it-to-me" look.
That's when it became official. The ACC, for decades the big bully of the college basketball playground, was crying uncle.
It's not surprising that the league's coaches came up with this ACC vs. the world mantra a year after earning just three bids to the NCAA tournament. What is surprising is that the sportswriters in attendance, the same scribes who had helped behead the king just months before, were so quick to sew that head back on at the neck.
Just because Odom, Krzyzewski and Sendek said the league deserved more bids, all of a sudden the media deemed it true. And for the better part of four months, the party line held up; Duke, Maryland and N.C. State were all "locks" for the Dance at one point, while Virginia and UNC remained solid bets.
Now comes the harsh realization: The ACC probably wasn't that bad last year, but it's certainly not any better this year.
With State playing its way out-of the NIT, that is-and UNC and UVa stumbling into the ACC tournament, only Maryland and Duke are sure things. The passionate lobbying of nine angry men last October is now a distant memory.
Last year, there were five ACC teams in the top 50 of Jeff Sagarin's rankings (the computer ranking that actually means something). This year there are four, with Wake Forest coming in at No. 51.
And Sendek is scratching his temple once again.
The
Duke's freshman class of 1997-98, of course, is the easy example. From a four-player class that recruiting gurus predicted could bring everything but world peace to Durham, there remains only one player.
But the problem runs deeper than the two-year stopovers by players like Elton Brand and William Avery. It also includes injuries and the transferitis that has spread so quickly that the NCAA is considering a cap on the number of scholarships a school can dole out in a given year.
And it's not a trend that sucks exclusively from the reservoirs of deep programs like Krzyzewski's.
Just take a quick glance at the influx of talent that was supposed to rescue a league on life support in 1998-99. Five ACC freshmen were McDonald's All-America selections and a sixth was a Parade selection.
A year later, Corey Maggette's pedicure-to-assist ratio is tops among NBA rookies, and Ron Curry may or may not play basketball ever again for North Carolina. Meanwhile, N.C. State's Adam Harrington saw talented Damien Wilkins in the rearview mirror and made a run for the border.
It doesn't stop there.
The league's best newcomer, junior college transfer Steve Francis, made a one-semester visit to Maryland that was positively Maggette-like. The talented but troubled Florida State center Karim Shabazz jumped ship on Steve Robinson in the middle of the season.
Swapping the Karim Shabazzes, Adam Harringtons and Chris Burgesses of the hoops world for incomers like Keith Friel and Shaun Fein is, at best, a minor annoyance and, at worst, another sign of the league's slow burn.
Certainly no one is calling that deal an upgrade. And even if the league did experience a net talent gain, the result of any transfer is usually a jolt to team-and, as an extension, league-chemistry.
Which is precisely the point. The ACC's problem is continuity, or the obvious lack thereof.
Sure, every conference is dealing with the early-exit crisis. But most of them are dealing with it better than the ACC. Aside from Duke, which plugged the dam with another All-World class, most of the other eight teams are stuck in a cycle of rebuilding.
Conventional wisdom suggests things could get worse, especially if Bobby Cremins' impending retirement is the start of a new round of coaching changes.
Few coaches will come into the ACC's cutthroat environment and display a Midas Touch like Pete Gillen has at UVa. Of the league's nine active skippers, only Bill Guthridge managed a winning ACC record in his first season. And not much needs to be said about the pressure Guthridge is feeling right about now.
It's true that the era of the ACC receiving six bids may be over, if only because it has become a statistical anomaly. A team that finishes a respectable 8-8 in the league has to somehow pick up 10 to 12 non-conference wins in its remaining 12 to 14 games, while simultaneously playing a schedule that will impress the selection committee. You do the math.
On the other hand, if Virginia and UNC (both 9-7) earn bids Sunday, it may be a signal that the once-dominant league has regained some measure of respect. Remember, this conference did edge an admittedly watered-down Big Ten in a head-to-head December showdown.
At the very least, four bids would be a building block. And while many observers lament the supposed dearth of good coaching, this could be the year that stability makes a comeback.
If Tech finds a young, exciting replacement (read: Mark Price) to go with long-term winners Gillen, Krzyzewski, Williams and Odom, the league will be back on track. Despite recent griping, Sendek has State pointed in the right direction, too.
Which means that even if Guthridge, Robinson and Clemson's Larry Shyatt fall by the wayside sooner rather than later, the ACC will have re-established continuity the only way you really can in this era of college hoops: on the bench.
Don't cry for the ACC just because Dave Odom and Mike Krzyzewski do. The pendulum will swing back again.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.