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Swofford Hopes ACC Will Get 5 in NCAA Field

By Dane Huffman

Mar 14, 2008

Charlotte, N.C. — John Swofford, the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, said Friday that he hopes the league will have five men's basketball teams make the NCAA Tournament field on Sunday.

"I think we should have five at this point, realistically," Swofford said. "We have five that are very deserving of being in the tournament."

Swofford said Duke, North Carolina, Clemson, Miami and Virginia Tech should make the tournament  when it is announced on Sunday night.

The ACC had seven teams in the field last season.

Swofford noted that the league remains the highest-rated conference in the Ratings Percentage Index.

"This year, RPI-wise, we're the strongest conference in the country," he said.

 ACC bids have varied over the last decade. The league received only three bids in
1999 and 2000, then had six in 2001. The following years were four in 2002 and 2003, six in 2004, five in 2005 and four in 2006.

 On another note, Swofford said the tournament is off to a strong start in its return to Charlotte. The atmosphere around Charlotte Bobcats Arena has been amazing, with fans lining the streets of downtown Charlotte and spilling out of restaurants and shops near the arena.

But the size of the building - about 20,000 seats - is problematic, since that limits the number of tickets that can go to fans. ACC Tournament tickets are vital to the schools because it's a way to reward top boosters.

The future ACC Tournaments have been awarded through 2015. The tournament is in Atlanta twice, including next year, and Greensboro the other five times.

There is a provision in the contract that the tournament could move out of Greensboro for one year in the 2013-15 period and then come back in 2016.

Swofford said Charlotte officials had already expressed interest in one of those years.

He called Charlotte "an important city to our conference" and said the ACC would want to explore having the baseball championships in Charlotte if a new Triple-A facility is built downtown.

But the size of the arena is an issue.

"This building is a terrific building," he said. "The only issue is the relative smallness of capacity."

But as for the experience overall, he said, "There's no question the quality of the experience for fans, the league, players, coaches, is terrific."

He also made an interesting point about the size of the arena as well. While one might assume bigger is better, he pointed out that the intense interest in the event in Charlotte could play to its advantage down the line.

"One of the mystiques of the tournament is the difficulty of getting a ticket," he said. "We don't ever want to lose that."

While Swofford didn't say so directly, one issue with the tournament last year in Tampa, Fla., was fans there weren't overly interested and tickets were plentiful.

 On a different note, Swofford said the ACC team that finished last in the league would not participate in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge the next season. So N.C. State is out of the event for 2008.