ACC Basketball has long been the standard in college basketball as a whole, but are they finally coming back down to earth this season?
Every season it seems there are a handful of ACC basketball teams that have a real shot at winning a national championship. That conference has widely been considered the best year in and year out in college basketball. They’ve also won four out of the last ten national championships. The ACC has had a final four representative four of the last five years with three of them winning the whole thing.
The men’s college basketball season is now into week ten and normally you would see around six to eight ACC teams in the top 25, but right now you are only looking at four in the rankings. The Duke Blue Devils sit highest among the conference teams, currently sitting at number two and primed to win the ACC this season and even make another run at a national title. On the other end, we have a blue blood big-time program in the North Carolina Tar Heels who just recently feel out of the rankings which is very rare for them and is one of the worst UNC teams we’ve seen in a long time.
The onslaught of the Big Ten becoming a top-tier basketball conference every year now, and the mid-majors taking advantage of the “one and done” world the big schools have to deal with, is why I believe we are finally seeing the ACC conference in terms of men’s basketball coming back down to earth as not being the elite standard of power in the sport. How long this will last is yet to be determined, but this year more than others, it is the most noticeable.
College football has been dealing with the SEC being the consistent power conference for years and I’m not too sure that is coming to an end soon, but as for the basketball side of things, we are seeing the shift in power and it might be here to stay for at least a little while as other schools and conferences are capitalizing on coaching hires and recruiting outside of the ACC.
Now we get to watch and see who will grab that title as best basketball conference in the country while it is up for grabs, and who can hold on to it year after year as the ACC did for so long.