Jeff Capel, other ACC coaches defend conference from detractors

Via the RPI or the NET, the ACC’s ranking among conferences is sixth. Only four of its teams are projected to earn NCAA Tournament berths.

By most measures, it is a down year for the ACC, but several conference coaches are coming to the league’s defense in emphatic fashion.

“It’s a joke how the ACC is being treated,” Miami coach Jim Larranaga said Monday during the final ACC coaches teleconference of the season. “Come June, when the NBA starts drafting, we will probably have more players drafted than anybody.”

That might be the case, but it is March — and just six of the 15 ACC teams are three games over .500.

Only four — Louisville, Florida State, Duke and Virginia — have at least 20 wins. Those are the only four teams ranked by the AP. Defending national champion Virginia re-entered the rankings Monday at No. 22, but only after a six-game winning streak.

A big week for the Hoos has them back in the top 25!

Here's where #ACCMBB stands as we enter the final week of the regular season ↓ pic.twitter.com/inzgwb0uFd

— ACC Men's Basketball (@accmbb) March 2, 2020

Still, Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner maintains the ACC is “the best league in the country, hands down.”

“(Even if) you take the nine teams that aren’t the blue bloods,” Pastner said Monday, “you take the other nine, that’s (still) an incredible league.”

The ACC’s three best teams this season are all in the top 12 of the AP rankings, RPI and NET. Its hottest team is the reigning national champ. N.C. State is on the bubble and could make for five ACC schools in the NCAA Tournament.

Pitt coach Jeff Capel said part of the perception problem this season is the league lacks the “star power” of a player such as last year’s Duke sensation Zion Williamson. The ACC also is hurt by the struggles of North Carolina, arguably the conference’s most prominent program that is in last place this season and has been rocked by injury.

“I think our league may be better top-to-bottom than it was last year,” Capel said. “We just don’t have those ‘super teams,’ so to speak.”

With Selection Sunday less than two weeks away, it is unlikely the ACC gets a team seeded No. 1 in the NCAA Tournament after it had a record-tying three last season.

The most recent time that none of the 15 current ACC teams was seeded No. 1 in the tournament was 2003. In the 16 tournaments since, the ACC has had 20 representatives, plus a combined six by then-future members Syracuse, Louisville and Pitt.

Only in 2013 — when now-ACC member Louisville won a (since-vacated by the NCAA) national title — has the ACC not had a No. 1 seed.

Larranaga, though, was defiant about the perception this is a down season for the ACC.

“Against any league, if you put our top 10 teams against anyone else’s top 10, we will win more than our share against everybody,” he said.

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