Sigh: The ACC is bad again

But maybe the discourse won’t be? (Please?)

Ten months ago, we wrote about the ACC. Posted in the chaotic heart of Bubble Watch season, this particular ACC piece mostly argued that squabbling over conference strength is silly and sad. These leagues fans hold affinity for, these leagues we all grew up with, simply do not care about you or your traditional loyalties in the slightest. They take your support and money for granted as they distort themselves into unrecognizable quasi-national amalgamations of unrelated brands. Stanford. Cal. SMU. The ACC? Why, at this point, would you even care?

Conference arguments need to die

But the fact of the matter is that people do care. Maybe they are holding on to the good old days. Maybe they can’t quite get their head around it. Maybe they just operate from cold self-interest. Folks know that if a league is considered good, then their team is more likely to be seen as good. Regional pride is obviously bygone, so forget all that; fans just want their team to dance. Despite all of the work the college basketball community has done in the past 20 years to quantify the value of wins and losses, fans tend to insist that these broad perceptions still matter. And so when you say a league with the classical history — not to mention the recent tournament overperformance — of the ACC is bad, well, people tend to get upset.

Sorry, guys. We all watched the ACC/SEC Challenge. We’re just going to say it.

The 2024-25 ACC is bad.

This should not come as a surprise. Indeed, it has been the case for the past half-decade. Since 2020-21 the league has finished 5th, 5th, 7th, and 5th in KenPom’s conference rankings, which sort according to the ratings of teams expected to go .500 in conference play. The ACC entered the season ranked 5th in those rankings. It is again currently 5th — despite the Big East’s notable noncon struggles — by a wide margin.

It’s not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind

You can debate Ken’s rankings all you want. Conference arguments are inherently subjective, and different people have different qualifiers. (Some are willing to dismiss the worst teams in a league in favor of elite talent or tournament contenders; we believe all teams matter.)

But there is no caveating away what happened in the ACC/SEC Challenge this week. For the league as a whole — save Duke and Clemson, who won tough home games against really good teams — it was an unmitigated disaster.