ACC Champs? Reg Season or Tourney?

A few years back, I remember reading that the true ACC Champion is the winner of the ACC Tournament and there wasn’t an official “ACC Regular Season Champion”. I also heard “ACC Regular Season Champions” only started when some school wanted more goodies to hang from the rafters. I forgot what school…

So, who is the real/official ACC Championship? Season? Tourney?

I have my 2001 Duke BBall Championship poster framed in my office it states: ACC Regular Season Champions & ACC Tournament Champions…

Does the regular season champion get a trophy or do they just toss up a banner themselves b/c it’s not officially recognized?

If ya know… let me (us) know.

I guess I got use to winning both (reg season & tourney) in most years, so I never really thought about who owns the official title "ACC Champion".

All I know is that the trophy they give to the winner of the tournament says

"Atlantic Coast Conference Champions"

Doesn't say nuthin' 'bout no regular season.

In the ACC, the tournament champion is the conference champion.

It's also the winner of the tournament that gets the conference's NCAA bid, if you wanted another indicator of which the conference deems to be the 'real' champion.

Coach K used to favor the regular season championship, viewing a 16-game round robin as more indicative of who was the best than a single elimination tournament. One of his (and may others') biggest complaints about expansion was the end of the round robin, and the resulting irrelevance of the concept of a 'regular season' champion.

Look at this season and compare the standing with the in conference SOS.

At this point, the only thing the regular season crown really means is favorable seeding in the tournament, which is too bad because it used to be something really special.

Thanks all. I thought the tourney = ACC Champs, but now its confirmed.

Now back to fighting with all my Big-10 co-workers (mostly Indiana, Ohio State & Illinois) about which conference is better overall... :)

well that should be like having an uzi at a knife fight.

I believe the league does acknowledge a "regular-season champion," so it is kosher to call oneself that, print T-shrits, etc. Duke has even sold "Regular Season ACC Champion" T-shirts in the past.

"ACC Champion" is the tournament, of course, except to Maryland fans in 2002.

This is a good place to point out Duke has a 10-year streak of winning either the regular season outright or the tournament. So we need to be ACC Champions to keep the streak alive.

The ACC champ is officially determined by the tournament, and the tourney winner gets the NCAA tourney bid; however, since 1990, the ACC has recognized a regular season champ.

Al Featherston wrote about this in one of his columns for DBR. You can read it here.

I thought that Duke had always gone along with the ACC and only put up "ACC Champions" banners when they had won the tourney. However, I noticed that this year Cameron has new banners for "ACC Champions," some say "Regular Season," some say "Tournament," and some say both. Unfortunately, I can't recall how many banners there were last year (obviously, at least one fewer), so I don't know if Duke just recently made a change in policy or not.

Having watched games in Cameron the past two years, I can definitely say that Duke has added regular season banners from previous years. I was looking over at the ACC Champion banners on Wednesday and noticed there was no longer a gap for the year we lost to Maryland. Then I noticed in tiny print that it said "Regular Season". There must have been a change in policy from previous years.

Really? That sucks. That's stooping to carolina's level. I thought we were above that.

The ACC champion is the tourney winner. I think that is a great accomplishment. However, I always thought the regular season title was the true test of a champion...with the unbalanced schedule that is lost now. The two things I will note...1) winning 3 games in 3 days is a slightly different test than winning over a season and could favor two different teams. 2) depending on the luck of the draw you may get an easier match-up (not necessarily team) in the tourney some years versus others...also upsets in your half of the bracket may pave the way.

The only advantage of the tourney: 1) if you are outside the bubble you do get the bid although that doesn't happen that often. 2) winning the conference tourney can really help your seed for the NCAA tourney since it is the last thing the committee sees. This can be an important point for NCAA success.