It has been a disastrous start to the season for ACC basketball teams and the opening night of the league’s challenge against the SEC only heighted the concerns around the conference.
ACC programs posted a 1-9 record on Tuesday night against the SEC with its only win coming from the Clemson Tigers against No. 4 Kentucky, and the league is an underdog in four of the six games on Wednesday.
Duke and North Carolina are the only favorites for the ACC yet neither team is more than a three-point favorite against Auburn and Alabama, respectively.
The conference had the worst average NET ranking of any major league when the data points became available on Monday morning at 95.9. The Big East had the second worst average at 84.0.
In comparison, the SEC had the best average ranking of any league at 38.8. Now, the NET is not used to rank teams from best to worst but it is a tool that is used to determine and seed teams for the NCAA Tournament.
As has been the case over the last few years, the ACC appears to not be very deep and only have real championship contenders at the top of its standings.
However, the traditional powers of the Blue Devils and the Tar Heels have even shown blemishes through the first month of the season with Duke losing key games to Kentucky and Kansas while North Carolina put together a disappointing 1-2 record at the Maui Invitational.
It puts more stress on those teams to win its SEC Challenge game given the current lack of resume building victories that will be available during conference play.
SMU, a new member of the ACC, is the only other team as of Wednesday morning that is a Top-50 NET program – joining Pittsburgh, Duke, Clemson, and Carolina.
It’s still very early but the Atlantic Coast Conference could be looking at a small number of teams making the NCAA Tournament and hoping those teams go on lengthy runs like what North Carolina State did a season ago.