3 out of 4 times we won a national championship, we won the ACC tourney too (92, 01, 10).
3 out of 4 times we won a national championship, we won the ACC tourney too (92, 01, 10).
"Something in my vicinity is Carolina blue and this offends me." - HPR
What do you mean by "watered down"?
I don't think any coaches deliberately try to lose them. Some may not get upset or sigh in relief if they lose and get some extra rest, but that's different than not trying to win.
In today's game, with mega conferences, I certainly see the value in an conference tournament championship being the final answer on who the champion is. But what of the conferences that play a full round robin? Why is the regular season champ not given any credit?
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
Bob Knight opposed a conference tourney for years on the theory that what really counts is your consistency in head-to-head match ups over the entire season, not your ability to get hot for a weekend. There is some logic there. But the ACCT is so rich with tradition... Plus, with an unbalanced schedule, the RMK argument doesn't really work.
Another benefit of winning the ACC tournament is higher seeding, which in theory makes our path the NCAAs easier. This year if we win the ACCT we have a very good chance of getting the 1 seed in the east, vs if we lose early we risk falling down a line and getting shipped off someplace else.
To me, apart from the pride of winning an ACC Championship, the reason for wanting to win the ACCT is simple. Good teams win more games than other teams. It should be no surprise that most teams who make the final 4 are teams that either won or at least played in their conference tournament championship games. You have to win games to get to the conference title game. If your team doesn't win enough games to make it there, there is a much better chance that the team just isn't as good. This isn't always true, of course, as upsets happen every year. However, at the end of day, we want our team to be good enough to beat everyone they play as often as possible. This year, with Ryan coming back from injury and getting reintegrated with the team, I think playing lots of games in the ACCT is even more important. We want these guys to find their groove and reestablish the chemistry they had earlier in the season. We'll still have 5 days to rest after we cut down the nets on Sunday a week and a half from now =).
I wonder if age is partly a proxy for the attitudes shown here. My guess is that to old-timers like myself, winning the ACC tourney is a bigger deal. We have been playing this tournament for a much longer period of history than other conferences. Back in the day it determined THE conference champ (no banner for regular season), and the ONLY participant in the NCAA's. And in an 8-team league, even on day 1 there was a lot of excitement. Now day 1 is spent largely to eliminate the bottom-feeders.
Oh, and get off my lawn.
My feeling is that:
(1) There is no evidence that playing deep into the ACC Tournament impacts NCAA performance -- as others have pointed out, three of Duke's four national titlists won the ACC Tourney and the fourth played in the finals. But it goes beyond that -- 10 of our 15 Final Four teams won the ACC title and three more lost in the ACC finals. Only in 1990 and 1994 did we get to the Final Four without reaching the ACC finals.
(2) Losing early in the ACC Tournament is not a good thing. Look at the years when we lost in the quarterfinals (or in the case of 2007 in the first round): In 1987, we were upset by State, but made it to the Sweet 16. In 1995 we ddn't get an NCAA bid. In 1996 we lost our NCAA opener. In 1997 we were upset and we lost in the second round of the NCAA (with a top 10 team). In 2007 we lost in the first round to VCU. That's a 3-5 NCAA record after losing in the ACC quarters ... at least we were well rested.
(2) It IS the official ACC championship. People can argue that the regular season is a better test and they might be right -- but people can argue that the popular vote is a better way to choose a president, but if the loser in the popular vote wins more electoral votes, that sucker is president. Right now, the ACC determines its champion in the tourney, like it or not.
(3) My biggest goal every year is to win the NCAA title. That trumps everything. But it's not everything. I don't consider every season without a national title a failure. There are degrees of success. To me, the things that make a season great are (in order):
(1) a national title
(2) a final four
(3) an ACC title
(4) the Sweet 16
(5) a high national rank in the final poll
(6) an ACC regular season title
If winning the ACC title hurt the pursuit of a national title, then I'd agree with Roy -- bag it. But I think the evidence is that it's at worst irrelevant to NCAA performance and probably is an advantage in terms of building postseason momentum.
Let's go to Greensboro next weekend and win!
Oh sure, anyone can find a counter-example if they go back into ancient history...
I for one have always loved that Duke takes pride in their ACC Tournament competition. Play to win the game, right?
It builds momentum at the right point in the season, makes your guys more battle-tested, gives K time to learn more about his team in pressure-situations, let's the coaching staff try some new looks, etc. etc. Not to mention, the conference tourneys offer teams their final argument for #1 seeding.
The ACC Tourney seems even more valuable than usual for our team this year, with the team still adjusting to Kelly's return and trying to get people (Curry, Rasheed) more settled in their adjusted roles. Our team is undefeated with Kelly on the floor this year. Let's extend that through this month too.
Go Duke!
Do you really think other teams don't *try* to win their conference tournaments? Yea, I know Roy what has said. But when the ball goes up, these are 20 year-old kids, usually playing fierce rivals. Some coaches may play stars a few minutes less per game, but I would submit that that has more to do with playing 3 games in 3 days.
Most players and coaches made it to high-level CBB by loving and cherishing competition. You don't get good enough to play or coach in a Big 6 conference by picking and choosing which games are more important. Roy and Bob Knight are just loud exceptions, imo, and likely just making excuses for their losses in those tournaments.
Conference tournaments are awesome. Winning one is even better.
3 month conference seasons are awesome too, a round-robin is even better.
Conferences give out trophies for both, most of those trophies are the same size.
Gun to the head, I would take #2 over #1 any day. Winning on the road is more fun.
Of course they don't try to lose, but the psychological aspect of coaching is mostly about creating and fostering a mindset. When the mindset is "let's win but it's not that big a deal if we lose," I would argue you are at a distinct disadvantage vs. a team with a mindset of "let's win because these are the most important games of our season (so far)."
While I regularly agree with OF pretty much down the line, I have to take issue with this one measure of success. I was unaware that the ACC had a regular season "title". The ACC Tournament winner is recognized as the ACC basketball champion for the year. I think rewording (6) to something like "the team with the best ACC regular season record", would be more appropriate.
I guess this rankles me more than most on this board because I was at Duke when we had a really, really good team that was upset in the 1965 ACC Tournament final. In those days, only the ACC Tournament Champion went on to the NCAA Tournament. After the loss, Vic Bubas was quoted as saying: "that anyone who really lives is going to feel the sting of defeat at some time in his life." I guess that I still feel the sting after that one.
ricks
This comes up every year; maybe we should sticky it.
The ACC has acknowledged a "regular season champion" since 1990. In case of ties, all tied teams can call themselves "regular season champion", regardless of head-to-head or seeding tiebreakers.
This was most likely done at the behest of unc (ie, Dean) who had been hanging "championship" banners for years when they hadn't won the tournament. It's not clear there was ever an explicit ruling that schools can claim pre-1990 RS championships retroactively, but everyone who can do so seems to.
Now, I agree 120% that only the tournament champion should be able to call themselves the champion. But the way it is is the way it is. And Duke now hangs banners in Cameron for regular season championships.
Because our winning it means that Carolina did not win it. While I would not trade a Final Four appearance for an ACC championship, I don't see the negative correlation.
C'mon people. We all know that the reason we lose early in the NCAAT is because Krzyzewski tires the starters out in the regular season by mismanaging fine gradations of minutes. It's 1A! Get with the program!
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