Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 24, 1995 TAG: 9511240033
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Dick Vitale must be speechless.
It has been said it's not where you start, but where you finish. However, how teams start in the ACC this season may determine whether the league gets a majority of its members in the NCAA Tournament's 64-team field.
It didn't happen last season, when Georgia Tech's second consecutive somewhat surprising absence from the Large Lambada left the conference with only four NCAA entrants for the first time since North Carolina State's patient title walk in 1983.
Last season, the ACC had UNC, Wake Forest and Maryland in the final top 10, and Virginia was 13th. The ACC has been absent from the final top 10 in the writers' poll only twice. In 1954, Duke was 15th, and in '60, the Blue Devils were 18th, nine spots behind St.Bonaventure and six behind NYU.
Yes, the hoops universe has a different spin now. But if the ACC is to extend its run of eight years with a Final Four team, it will have to do it from the outside, and the league's members would do well to prosper in early nonconference play. The balance in the league is such that its teams could spend January and February beating one another toward NIT-picking.
As the Yellow Jackets have realized, even winning 18 against a respectable schedule isn't enough when you're .500 or below in conference play. And unlike last season, when the ACC was top heavy with four champions tying at 12-4, the ACC may have another pack besides the one rooted in Raleigh this season.
The ACC had a record eight first-round NBA draft picks, including underclassmen at Nos.1, 3 and 4, and nine of the top 12 vote-getters on the 1995 All-ACC team are gone. So, few are surprised Wake Forest is the highest-ranked conference club, at No.11, for starters.
Yes, the Demon Deacons have the league's premier player in junior center Tim Duncan, but like everyone else in the ACC, they have obvious holes. Virginia, for example, begins the season tonight against Tennessee-Martin with more questions than answers in the frontcourt.
Jeff Jones, UVa's coach, may not want guards Harold Deane and Curtis Staples averaging a combined 50 shots per game, but they may have to average more than 40 points if the Cavaliers are to be as good as expected. Jones' team is picked third in the league, ahead of UNC and Duke. The Tar Heels haven't finished worse than third in the league since coach Dean Smith, 64, was thirtysomething.
In the preseason media balloting, the Blue Devils were voted first and third through eighth. The Heels got votes from first to seventh places. Then, 9-7 may be good enough to finish third this season.
The ACC race could look like the one 11 years ago, although Virginia won't finish in last place, as it did in 1984-85. In that pre-Florida State season, Georgia Tech, UNC and N.C. State tied for the top in the regular season at 9-5, one game ahead of Duke and Maryland. Clemson and Wake were 5-9, two games ahead of the Cavaliers. And the league placed five teams in the NCAA field.
In the four seasons since Florida State joined the league, no regular-season winner has finished with fewer than 12 ACC victories. Some coaches not only think 10-6 might be good enough to get in a tie-breaker for the top seed in the ACC tournament, but half that many victories might get you only as far as last place.
It isn't as if the league is barren. The ACC may not yet have a top 10 team, but it does have five clubs in this week's poll. No other conference can say that, and the Big Ten is the only other league with as many as four ranked clubs.
``With all of this parity, the nonconference games will be crucial,'' says Jones, in what isn't just an alert in a program that has had stutter starts of 2-2, 3-2 and 3-3 (twice) in four of his five years in charge.
Those dozen games ACC teams play with Big South clubs could be truly big. The ACC should get at least five teams in the NCAA Tournament, but they might have to go through Winthrop to get there.
by CNB