ACC Basketball during the Swofford era

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After seeing Wake Forest lose to Wofford, Florida State lose to Princeton and BC lose to Rhode Island, I started wondering what the ACC looked like when Swofford became the commissioner and how that compared to the mess we are seeing today. Swofford became the commissioner in 1997.
Here are where the ACC teams in the 1997 NCAA basketball tournament.
Maryland 5th seed
Duke 2nd seed
UNC 1st seed
UVA 9th seed
Wake Forest 3rd seed
Clemson 4th seed
All but UVA ended the regular season in the top 25.
There are currently 2 ACC teams in the top 25.

At the end of the 1997-1998 season the ACC had three schools in the top ten of the RPI and an average RPI rating of 43.5
Right now the original nine ACC teams have one team in the top ten and an average RPI rating of 86.3. If you add the three new members the average drops to 96.1.

Since the RPI is not “fully connected” in 2011-2012, at the end of the 2010-2011 season the ACC finished with two teams in the top ten in the RPI and an average RPI rating of 91.8. Here are the ACC teams who made the 2011 NCAA tournament (including all 12 teams).
CU 12th seed
UNC 2nd seed
Duke 1st seed
FSU 10th seed

About Rick

1992 and 2002 graduate from NCSU. Born and raised an NCSU fan. I remember the good ol' days and they weren't in the last 20 years.

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28 Responses to ACC Basketball during the Swofford era

  1. ncsustash 01/03/2012 at 3:12 PM #

    A better comparison would be before and after the expansion from 9 to 12.

  2. Rick 01/03/2012 at 3:18 PM #

    Good idea. The three schools started in the 2004-2005 time frame.
    One team in the top ten with an average RPI of 65 which is a little misleading since GaTech was 307.

  3. 61Packer 01/03/2012 at 3:42 PM #

    To me, the Swofford era has been about one thing- EXPANSION. Basketball, the thing that made the ACC great, has been tossed so that we can try to become another SEC, Big 12 or Big Ten football league.

    How’s that working out for you, Johnny?

    I liked the league better with 8 teams. I know that staying at 8 teams probably doesn’t make sense, but if we end up at 16, we’ll essentially be the ACC and Big East Conferences, merged. I think it’s the worst of both worlds.

    Rivalries made the ACC a good league, and we were unique in that so many of our teams were geographically near each other. That sold tickets, built rivalries, and kept ACCT interest, even long after the NCAAT expanded to 64 teams.

    I just mailed back my “decline” notice for ACCT tickets. I don’t want to go to Atlanta, and I don’t care to watch an entire day of #s 5-12 playing each other.

    And thanks to Swofford and his ilk, in the coming years we can watch 5 days of ACCT action, on tv, featuring not 12 but 16 teams, most of whom you couldn’t care less about. Teams that took your local favorites off your team’s home (and away) schedule and replaced them with teams accessible only by plane.

  4. LRM 01/03/2012 at 3:44 PM #

    To be fair, the 1996-97 ACC was arguably one of the strongest of it’s history, so you’re not going to be able to favorably compare many seasons to it (perhaps 90-91 or 06-07).

    Carolina, Duke and Wake were each premier teams while Clemson, Maryland and Virginia would have been conference champions in most other leagues. And the last place team (State) was 7-5 in February and March.

  5. Rick 01/03/2012 at 3:56 PM #

    I did include the 97-98 information as well.

  6. wolfbuff 01/03/2012 at 4:06 PM #

    Yes, it has been all about expansion with football revenues at the core. But that’s where the money is. He could have tried that with basketball, but there would have been no expansion – at least not with the teams we got, and we’d essentially be what the Big East is now. I rather like our long term prospects as a conference compared to them. I’m not sure I see the correlation of expansion and/or the Swofford Era to the decline in basketball. But even if there is, we can get back to greatness. The Big Ten, arguably the top basketball conference right now, does not (aside from Indiana) have the same historical greatness in that sport as the ACC. With a stronger football base and our basketball history, we should be able to return to the top.

  7. pack76 01/03/2012 at 4:06 PM #

    I don’t really care for these kind of comparisons but it does say alot about where the ACC has come or not come! No tourney tickets for me this year.

  8. Pack1997 01/03/2012 at 4:46 PM #

    I have a tough time blaming Swofford for the results. The facts is outside of Duke and UNC, no one has wanted to pay deccent coaches to stick around. The constant coaching carousel has made it worse and the same in football. Gone are the 4-5 years a coach has to prove himself. He has to do it in 3 years. So the turnover continues which keeps schools in the red and unable to afford the big time coaches.

    On the bright side I truly believe bball will be the ACCs #1 sport next year. With Pitt and Cuse coming it balances out the northern portion of the conference with instant rivalries. Two solid programs along with us FSU, and UVA on the rise, would mean 7 good to great teams. Then hope the others can have teams that step up every few years and the ACC is back on top. I do agree the ACCT could be a bit tough to go to watch with all those games.

  9. Prowling Woofie 01/03/2012 at 4:49 PM #

    I’m for anything that makes Swofford look bad 😉

  10. oceanman 01/03/2012 at 5:04 PM #

    Only thing Swoffy cares about is looking out for his buddies in Chapel Hill and getting interviewed to talk about his football prowess when at UNX. Time for the other 15 members of the ACC to call for a commish without UNX loyalties or loyalties to other ACC schools for that matter. Now more than ever, a commish without UNX ties is needed.

  11. drgreenhouse 01/03/2012 at 5:11 PM #

    I’ve typed it before on this site and I have seen it reflected by many other posters – The ACC is weak because we are weak. When NC State is strong, the conference is strong. You could argue that our only bright spots in the revenue sports in the last 20 years (Excluding this season) can be attributed to the outstanding careers of a handful of athletes in spite of poor administration and/or mediocre coaching. Swofford may be a Carolina homer, but he has put the ACC in a position to survive/thrive in the Mega Conference Era, even if it has involved a gradual takeover of the Big East. It should be our goal as an institution to take advantage of the new environment.

  12. blpack 01/03/2012 at 6:16 PM #

    The first expansion moves were for football. Cuse and Pitt will help hoops more than football. This love in with UNC-ch and Duke has costs the league in perception. The best basketball has always been in the ACC until recently. State, GT, Md and maybe UVa need to get better. State is at the head of that list. Looking for the Pack to do its part and be relevant again.

  13. Wolf74 01/03/2012 at 7:03 PM #

    In my opinion the Swofford Era has been all about promoting UNC-CHeats and Duke at the expense of the other schools. Whatever makes them look better, whatever helps them win. The sooner the ACC is rid of that homer, the better off it will be. Hopefully, if nothing else, Cuse and Pitt will help to wrestle control from those two schools.

  14. SaccoV 01/03/2012 at 8:43 PM #

    Swofford’s attempt for expansion was to PROMOTE the football in the conference as being premiere … it isn’t even close. The move was generally thought (at least by me) as preferential to the blues because of the light basketball capabilities of those same teams (FSU, Va Tech, Miami, BC); however, it has increased ACC baseball as being among the best in the country, but that was in no way whatsoever the impetus behind expansion.

    As a whole, (Football is below average now, Basketball has been below average since, and baseball has been strengthened), the move has been a poor one up to this point.

    To Pack1997’s point, the coaching carousel (or short-leash) I don’t believe is a direct result of the UNC-Duke factor either (as many have argued the case in recruiting, which has been pretty well debunked by authors on the forum [sorry, I don’t recall the actual author(s) on those posts]). BC, WF, MD, Ga Tech, Miami, State, Clemson, UVa have all had one coaching change SINCE expansion (Most of those coaching switches have been downgrades [or panic hires to cover for unexpected contigencies, i.e. Prosser’s death, Haith’s firing]).

  15. Gene 01/03/2012 at 9:17 PM #

    As much as I want to blame Swofford and think the ACC needs to break the Duke-UNC-Ch centric focus of the conference – they get their filler games against in-state rivals like Gardner-Webb or UNC-W televised on ESPN or ESPN2, where as any other team in the country needs to be playing a game of some significance, conference or good OOC match-up to get national exposure – I think forces out of his control caused the doom of ACC baskeball.

    (1) Sweaty Gary Williams not doing much after winning the 2002 National Title and going to back-to-back Final Fours. Maryland was a rising program that peaked and slid down hill fast. If they kept their late 1990’s level of play up, the ACC would be better.

    (2) Pete Gillen sucking at UVa. He had one, maybe two good seasons and a one of the best resumes of any coach hired. He couldn’t cut it in the ACC.

    (3) The untimely death of Skip Prosser that hurtled Wake Forest from an upper echelon team to an after thought.

    (4) Paul Hewitt proving it’s sometimes better to be lucky than good; i.e. he couldn’t do anything after going to the NCAA Finals in 2004 (?) and then watching the yellow jackets go backwards.

    (5) BC’s crazy-ass AD firing Al Skinner. Turned BC from a solid team into a less than solid team.

    (6) Replacing Herb Sendek with Sidney Lowe. Whatever Herb’s faults were as a coach, he did have us relatively competitive in the conference. With Lowe, we were not (and I’m leaving it at that).

    There are probably a bunch of other reasons, why ACC basketball is down, compared 12-15 years ago, but the bottom line is coaches, who took over once good programs, in the 1980’s – UVa, Ga. Tech – didn’t make them better, while a rising Wake Forrest Program fell apart after Prosser’s death.

    Add to that the ineptness of the Lowe tenure at NCSU, the WTF firing of Al Skinner and Maryland’s fall from the top of the basketball world and you have some of the problems that have landed us in this mess.

    I really can’t stand having a UNC-Ch homer as the Commish and wish there was a way to get the good old boy network out of the running the ACC, so other teams that are not Duke and UNC-Ch, can get some exposure, but the current state of ACC basketball was a mess about 10 years in the making.

    Hopefully, this new round of coaches will improve the overall quality of the basketball programs.

    Also, I can’t blame expansion. Every conference has had or is trying to deal with expansion and the impact hasn’t been as severe on their basketball programs.

  16. gcpack 01/03/2012 at 10:08 PM #

    I would like to know why no one in the media or at least some conference members (like Clemson) don’t take the ball and push for additional CONFERENCE penalties for Unc just like johnny boy did towards Clemson in the ’80s. And he was just the Unc ad then. His favoritism in regards to the uncheat situation is appalling and reeks of more baby blue influence that I am all too tired of.

    Why isn’t there more of a hue and cry from the other conference members on this?

  17. VaWolf82 01/03/2012 at 10:17 PM #

    ACC basketball sucks for only one reason…bad coaching at too many schools.

  18. Gene 01/04/2012 at 1:06 AM #

    “Why isn’t there more of a hue and cry from the other conference members on this?”

    They turn over their athletics departments periodically and don’t always promote from within, unlike UNC-Cheat.

    The institutional memory of Clemson and other schools is therefore much shorter than a fans memory of the happenings in the ACC.

  19. runwiththepack 01/04/2012 at 1:26 AM #

    Gene, whoa!

    as per your #6). I am NOT leaving it at that. We did not replace Herb with Lowe, exactly. You know the story.

    Although Sendek’s replacement was a setback, NCSU HAD to try something else, even at the risk of things getting worse, (which, of course, they did).

    Was Lowe even on the radar when the search for Sendek’s replacement began? If not, (and i don’t think Lowe was on that list), then you make it sound too much like the media detractors were right in the way they have portrayed it.

    Even though things haven’t turned out so well since, NCSU had to do something, even at the risk of further deterioration, and even though Fowler didn’t realize it.

    I think it would be a fair assessment to say that Sendek would have copied his years at AZ St. here in Raleigh, more or less, had he stayed. We would be 4-9 right now.

  20. runwiththepack 01/04/2012 at 1:35 AM #

    Scratch that 4-9. That 4-9 AZ St. record is against a weak schedule. NCSU would be 2-11 now against our schedule this year, even though AZ St. did whup Wake Forest by 27 points or so.

  21. logarithm 01/04/2012 at 8:23 AM #

    I think when Swofford retires he’ll look back at the TV contracts signed during his tenure and deem himself an astounding success.

  22. Alpha Wolf 01/04/2012 at 9:27 AM #

    logarithm hits the nail on the head: TV contracts.

    The ACC has become like other college sports entities: a money-making machine, and nothing else.

    Don’t kid yourself: it’s not about competition and the health of all the teams so long as one of the Royal Blues carry the league banner (aka the brand’s value) into the Final Four. It’s not about educating the players. It’s not about tradition.

    It’s all about the Almighty Dollar, period. And those dollars come from TV.

    The best part of it is that the bulk of the operational expenses of each member school comes from the the True Believers (what Stalin called Useful Idiots) — the donors who pony up to pay for new arenas and football centers and practice facilities.

    It’s all led to the schools being richer in money but far poorer in heritage over the long haul.

  23. ClassOf95 01/04/2012 at 10:41 AM #

    Is the point of this post to say Swofford is the reason the ACC is not as good as we used to be? What kind of say does the conference commissioner have when it comes to hiring coaches, recruiting, player development, and building good facilities at member schools? I’ll go ahead and say “none.” In the history of the universe I can guarantee you that no commissioner has ever walked up to a university chancellor / president and said, “You’d better do something about your winning percentage.” The commissioner markets the product he/she is given and for Swofford that has been Dook and the Holes and occasionally someone else. If we (or Virginia or BC or whoever) wants some of the spotlight it is up to Randy Woodson, Debbie Yow, our donors, fans, and coaches to make our teams better. What does Swofford have to do with it? Nothing. That’s what.

  24. TruthBKnown Returns 01/04/2012 at 11:00 AM #

    As much fun as it is to bash Swoffy at every turn, I don’t really see any connection between him and the poor basketball performance of every conference school outside of the blues. I think he did what was needed to make the ACC stronger when there was a lot of conference expansion talk going on. Had he not added Cuse and Pitt, there was a very real possibility that other conferences might have raided US instead. It’s easy to complain now that we have the benefit of 20-20 hindsight. But things might well have turned out differently had he not done that. Conference expansion has cooled, but I still think he did the right thing at the time.

    I don’t like Swofford, and I do think he’s a Carolina homer and will do everything in his power to protect them when needed. But I don’t blame him just because several individual schools have poor performing basketball programs. Like VaWolf said above, it’s not Swofford’s fault that schools have had bad coaching.

  25. Gene 01/04/2012 at 11:06 AM #

    “as per your #6). I am NOT leaving it at that. We did not replace Herb with Lowe,”

    At the end of the day, Lowe’s tenure was a disaster on the court. The only redeeming trait is he recruited fairly well and only one of his players transferred because of the coaching change this year.

    Bottomline, as others have pointed out, is somehow in the last 10 years the quality of coaching in the conference effectively fell off a cliff.

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