ACC Tournament time? Cue expansion haters.
Mar 10, 2010
The ACC Tournament starts tomorrow, which inevitably bring back the "expansion stinks" meme.
I find it interesting that none of the pundits gleefully poking fun of John Swofford and the ACC ever present a solution to the conference’s "problems". They won't even touch the flawed logic of praising the Big East despite the conference having 4 more teams than the ACC.
It’s worth pointing out the loudest critics of expansion typically originates from the older media contingent. In essence, those who made their bones covering ACC basketball. And no matter how hard they close their eyes and wish their romanticized ACC of yesteryear would return, it’s never coming back.
Sit in a room with long-time ACC writers and bring up the “round robin” format. It would be like asking a room full of “Star Wars” die-hards to opine on the prequel trilogy or Tolkien fiends who were offended by the sequencing of "The Lord of the Rings."
The league had to modernized in order to survive in a changing sports climate. Otherwise the conference would have evolved into a type of boutique shop that only sells vintage books about basketball. Instead of focusing so much energy complaining, perhaps one should ponder an existence without expansion. It might just get them out of their stubborn refusal to accept the big picture.
Most Recent Comments
Posted Mar 11, 4:06 p.m.
Rank: Pro Posts: 192
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Location: Cary, NC
RE: ACC Tournament time? Cue expansion haters.
I think the point dmccall and sbas2 were trying to make is that expansion brought historically football schools into a basketball conference. Their fans could care diddly squat about basketball. Oh sure, you can get them to generate some excitement from time to time, but over all its one big yawn to them. Thus, the relative ease with which tickets can be obtained these days.- Posted by wnowell
So if the new football team school fans don't care, why aren't the fans of the original teams buying up all the tickets? I still don't get why this has "sunk the league". What this does sound like is people who used to enjoy a "private little party" and are upset that the "riff raff" have crashed the festivities.
If people want to say they liked it better because of the round-robin schedule, fine. I can understand that, but then that was ignoring the financial reality of today's college sports world. But to say expansion caused the bad basketball...that just doesn't make sense. If that were true, then only the new teams from the "football schools" would be bad and the old teams could continue being good. I think the bigger "cause", as I stated before, is that before expansion, you did not have great players going straight to the NBA and players were staying and playing in college longer. Top recruits now who do play college are spread out across more schools and every team has more turnover. The ACC schools just have not adapted to that to stay consistently good. Even without expansion, it is likely people would still be griping about the current play of ACC teams.
RE: ACC Tournament time? Cue expansion haters.
I think the point dmccall and sbas2 were trying to make is that expansion brought historically football schools into a basketball conference. Their fans could care diddly squat about basketball. Oh sure, you can get them to generate some excitement from time to time, but over all its one big yawn to them. Thus, the relative ease with which tickets can be obtained these days.Posted Mar 11, 2:45 p.m.
Rank: Pro Posts: 192
Joined: Jul, 2008
Location: Cary, NC
RE: ACC Tournament time? Cue expansion haters.
- Posted by davidvanwagenerRight on cue.- Posted by TheManKev
Have you ever seen a more self-serving headline? If you criticize the headline, you're a 'hater'. A similar headline would be "Joe Ovies. Does he have no clue or is he just stupid?" Gimme a break. All I will tell you is that today you can get tickets below face value for the ACC tournament's semi-final round.
Could it be that few of the ACC teams are really playing well this year AND there is 11% unemployment in the state...and those that are employed are too busy to go to Thursday day games? There are a lot of unusual factors this year to blame this so easily on expansion.
Posted Mar 11, 1:51 p.m.
Rank: Pro Posts: 192
Joined: Jul, 2008
Location: Cary, NC
RE: ACC Tournament time? Cue expansion haters.
dmccall and sbas2....how did expansion sink the league? I just don't get it. Did the new teams siphon off recruits who would have gone to the original schools? I don't think a strong case can be made for that since the upper echelon of the "old teams" seem to be able to get whatever recruits they want. The fact is that those teams are either not recruiting as well as they used to or they are just not playing as well. Could part of this be that in the "old days" you had players staying at school longer so teams could build a strong bench and experience? Maybe the ACC has not learned how to deal well with one-and-done players. Not sure what the root cause is, but I have YET to hear anyone explain WHY having the new teams makes the existing teams play worse.Yes, the ACC used to have more teams in the NCAA tournament every year, but lately they have not earned that right on the court. Are you saying that playing FSU, Boston College, Miami, and VaTech means more losses each season? Is that what you are saying? If so, then maybe the old schools were not as tough as they thought. Getting more teams into the NCAA tourney each year to rebuild the rep of the ACC is as simple as more teams earning their way in. Expansion should not stop that unless they just can't handle the competition.
RE: ACC Tournament time? Cue expansion haters.
Right on cue.- Posted by TheManKev
Have you ever seen a more self-serving headline? If you criticize the headline, you're a 'hater'. A similar headline would be "Joe Ovies. Does he have no clue or is he just stupid?" Gimme a break. All I will tell you is that today you can get tickets below face value for the ACC tournament's semi-final round.
