Down year for ACC or just a down year for NCAA?

[ACCBBallFan]

Down year for NCAA Basketball –

Some say this is a down year for the ACC, but that depends on how down ACC is relative to the rest of the NCAA.

As you will see below, ACC appears to have four teams on the bubble (UVA, Clemson, BC and MD) with 3 currently appearing to be inside the bubble and the fourth the last one not selected.

I guess it depends on what qualifies as a “Down Year”. So as a starting point, let’s assume that it is a down year for your conference if only one team makes the Big Dance.

At the moment, I see 24 conferences in that situation

01-Am East – Vermont
02-Atl 10 – Xavier (maybe St Joe’s too)
03-Atl Sun – E. TN St.
04-Big Sky – No. Arizona
05-Big South – Winthrop
06-Big West - UC Santa Barbara
07-Conf USA – Memphis (maybe UAB and Houston or So MS)
08-Horizon – Butler
09-Ivy – Penn
10- MAAC - Manhattan
11-MAC – Akron (or Kent St)
12-MCC - Oakland
13-MEAC – Hampton
14-MVC – SIU (maybe Bradley or Illinois St)
15- MWC _ San Diego St (or BYU)
16-NE – Sacred Heart
17-OVC _ Austin Peay
18-Patriot – Holy Cross
19-Southern – Davidson
20-Southland – Northwestern St
21 -Sun Belt – Western KY
22-SWAC – MS Valley St
23-WAC – New Mexico St (or Utah St or Nevada)
24-WCC – Gonzaga

That leaves 41 bids for the other conferences

26– CAA (1 or 2) – (VCU and/or George Mason)

30 – B 12 (4) – Kansas, Texas, K-St, TX A&M (maybe Oklahoma, Missouri, TX Tech, Oklahoma St or Nebraska or Baylor)

36 – Big 10 (6) - Michigan St, Indiana, Ohio St, Wisc., Illinois and Purdue

42 – SEC (6) - TN, UK, Alabama, Arkansas, MS St and FL (maybe GA, Vandy or LSU or Auburn)

49 – Pac10 (7) – UCLA, Wash St., USC, Stanford, Oregon, Arizona, and Wash (maybe California)

56 – ACC (7 or 8) – UNC, Duke, NC St, GA T, UVA, Clemson, (BC and/or MD)

65 – Big East – Louisville, G-town, Marquette, Pitt, Nova, Syracuse, UCONN, W VA and Notre Dame (maybe Providence).

So while people are saying it is a down year for the ACC, relative to other conferences, particularly the mid-majors who lost a lot to graduation and had a lot of coaching changes, it could be a very good year for ACC with respect to how many teams in the Big Dance.

Even when you look at which teams appear to be on the pre-season bubble, most are from the major conferences, in this order, with only 7 of these 28 getting in (since one of VCU/George Mason will get the automatic CAA bid for sure):

01-Notre Dame
02-UVA
03-Clemson
04- Wisconsin
05-B C
06-Illinois
07-Purdue

-----------------------------------------------

08-MD
09-VCU or Geo Mason (one will get an automatic bid, other is on the bubble)
10-Oklahoma
11-Utah State
12-California
13-Georgia
14-Missouri
15-Providence
16-St Joe's
17-UAB
18-TX Tech
19-Houston
20-Vandy
21-Bradley
22-LSU
23-OK State
24-Southern MS
25-Nebraska
26-Kent State
27- Auburn
28- Baylor

I am also not convinced FSU with U-19 Nigerian star 7-footer Solomon Alabi and Julian Vaughn to go with Echefu and proven guards will not get into the mix

or that Miami if Rios can play decent PG to go with McClinton and a ton of returning beef thanks to change in red shirt rule will not.

Of course the end result may be that they knock some other ACC teams outside the bubble with them.

Not much hope for VA Tech or Wake though.

[Bluedawg]

Is it a "bad year" or are more teams getting to a competitive balance? Instead of the talent being concentrated in one or two conferences is it getting spread out more?