ACC Tournament Locations

[-jk]

I suppose it can't stay in Greensboro forever so DC is an alternative until NY opens up.

Well, yeah. Obviously, the Bigger Whatever doesn't care 'bout DC. The ACC might as well.

-jk

[weezie]

Being the dork that I am, I computed the center of gravity of the 2016 ACC (15 teams). I used the coordinates of the cities, not the campuses, as given by Wikipedia. These were rounded to the nearest minute (a minute is roughly a mile). For Boston College I used Newton and for ND I used South Bend. Everyone was equal-weighted; I didn't account for enrollment levels or location of alumni.

Whoa whoa whoa. You sir, are a dork and a nerd and a super smarty pants. My center of basketball gravity is where I sit in any and all arenas. Spread the wealth (not my derriere, wise acres) I say.

Man alive, there's men alive in there.

[hurleyfor3]

No one wants to call me out for neglecting cosine error? Latitudes can be averaged, but strictly speaking longitudes shouldn't be. The ACC schools are rather well-distributed geographically though, so it shouldn't make much difference.

[Here is a Turtle]

Well, yeah. Obviously, the Bigger Whatever doesn't care 'bout DC. The ACC might as well.

-jk

There's a lot of B1G alums in DC so...

But regardless, the move makes sense fr a recruiting standpoint.

[-jk]

And being the history dork that I am, I can't help point out that this point was the scene of one of the most dramatic and important moments in American history -- very near the place called Boyd's Crossing, where General Nathanial Greene won the Race to the Dan and saved the Continental Army in the South.

Greene inherited the Southern Division of the Continental Army in the fall of 1980, soon after it had been virtually destroyed at the Battle of Camden. He took over a few thousand sick and beaten men just outside Charlotte, N.C. At the time, Cornwallis commanded more than five times as many troops just over the South Carolina border.

Greene then did something crazy -- he split his tiny army, sending his best troops west under Daniel Morgan. Cornwallis responded by moving his main body after Greene, while sending a powerful force under Banastre Tarleton after Morgan. At a place just to the southwest of Charlotte known as The Cowpens, Morgan absolutely crushed Tarleton's force -- killing and capturing more than 1,000 redcoats.

Morgan quickly retreated with his booty (and prisoners) into North Carolina, moving NE to link up with Greene. The two armies met near Salisbury with Cornwallis closing fast with an overwhelming force. When the British got to Salisbury, the Americans were gone. Cornwallis -- who despite his ultimate defeat was probably the best British general to fight in America -- responded by burning his baggage train and converting his army to light troops. He started in pursuit of Greene as winter descended on North Carolina with cold weather and steady, cold rain. The race to the Dan, where thousands of well trained and well equipped Virginia militia waited (but would not leave the state), was on. At first Morgan commanded the rearguard, but his health forced him to retire and Colonel William Smallwood, who commanded a superb regiment of Maryland Continentals, took charge. He skirmished with the British advance guard all across North Carolina -- often just minutes ahead of them. But Smallwood did something brilliant -- he moved slightly west of the main rebel body, giving them room to reach the Dan and cross unmolested on Valentine's Day, 1981. The final race was for Smallwood's rearguard to reach the ferry point -- they won by mere minutes ... their boats hitting the north side of the Dan as the British advance guard reached the south bank.

With every boat on the river in rebel hands on the north bank and the nearest fords a half-day's march away, plus his unsupplied army (their supplies burned in Salisbury) Cornwallis had to break off the pursuit.

Several months later, a reinforced American army crossed back into North Carolina and cut the heart of Cornwallis' army at Guilford's Courthouse -- with Smallwood's Marylanders holding the center of the line. Greene retreated, giving Cornwallis the "victory" but the terrible losses convinced Cornwallis to give up on North Carolina and to invade Virginia instead ... and we all know how that turned out.

Barely a year after Greene took over a broken and dispirited force near Charlotte, Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown and Greene completed the re-conquest of the Southern colonies. He never won a clearcut victory on the battlefield, but he conquered a territory larger than France -- and the centerpiece of his triumph was an epic retreat -- his race to the Dan.

Thanks, Oly! History was never my strong suit, but I just watched my daughter study the American Revolution. Her book didn't put this sort of texture onto the story. Fun (if tangential) read.

-jk