The Atlantic Coast Conference as a whole has been fairly underwhelming over the last few seasons in terms of getting teams into the NCAA Tournament field. The ACC has had teams make deep runs, but in terms of the sheer number of teams earning at-large bids, the numbers have been down quite a bit. The ACC hasn't gotten more than five teams in the NCAA Tournament field since 2021, and hasn't had more than two top-four seeds in the same year since 2019. This season, it looked like the conference was back with new head coaching hires and tons of freshman talent throughout the league. But a few recent losses to two of the conference's top squads are hurting any momentum it's gained.
The ACC is going back to an 18-game conference schedule for the first time since the 2018-19 season, and one of the biggest reasons for that change is to try to give clubs the opportunity to build a better at-large resume and earn a trip to the big dance. Many ACC programs have scheduled extremely difficult non-con slates, and the Duke Blue Devils might have the toughest in the entire country.
Ugly losses at the hands of Virginia and NC State just killed lots of momentum that the ACC had
Both Virginia and NC State hired new head coaches this offseason, in Ryan Odom and Will Wade, respectively. Both rosters are made up of almost entirely new faces, so it makes sense to deal with some growing pains early. The Hoos and Wolfpack were expected to be competing at the top of the ACC this season, and NC State even broke into last week's Associated Press Poll at No. 25.
However, both programs have now suffered ugly non-conference losses that hurt some of the mojo that the ACC was building.
On November 23rd, Virginia fell 80-73 to Butler at the Greenbrier Tip-Off. The Bulldogs were 4-1 heading into the contest, but ranked outside the top 50 at KenPom heading into the game. Although Butler looks like it will be fairly competitive in the Big East this year, it's still a Quadrant 2 loss for UVA.
And for NC State, it's even worse. The Wolfpack entered the Maui Invitational as the favorites to win the event. However, the Wolfpack couldn't even stack a win on day one, as they dropped one to Seton Hall 85-74 on November 24th. NC State allowed the Pirates to shoot 52% from the field, while ACC Preseason Player of the Year Darrion Williams was limited to 12 points. Seton Hall was ranked 87th at KenPom before the game, and the defeat counts as a Quadrant 4 loss. NC State did come in at No. 23 in this week's AP Poll, but the new rankings came out before this game happened.
Now, it's only November, and most teams will look completely different in March than they do right now, especially teams with so many new guys. But for now, these tough losses will hurt the ACC.