If one thing has been obvious to me in the college sports world this year it is that the ACC is overrated in everything but soccer.
As I write this post I am celebrating my universities’ demolition of the #18 Clemson Tigers last night. But as I enjoy the glow from the halo of a good win, I am continually chided by ACC homers and Clemson fans wearing orange glasses that last night was a fluke or that UNCCH wore them down the night before.
All the talk about this game “being our super bowl” and our fans only showing up because we are playing an “ACC team” is just ridiculous. Charlotte fans hear it every time we play an ACC team. Those guys should see have seen the Charlotte 49ers as they took on High Point, App St., Davidson and SIU (note: All aforementioned teams not ACC teams). All of those games had possibly even more raucous crowds as 4,000 screaming students turned out for each one of them. Along with just as many community members. Clemson as a basketball program has been inferior to Charlotte for a long time. The only reason Clemson fans should think they are superior to Charlotte in basketball is that we had a down year last season and they had a far better than average season in 2006-2007.
Charlotte has finished .500 in the ACC this year with close losses to Maryland and Georgia Tech and confident wins vs Wake and Clemson and that is better than about half the teams in that overrated conference will finish.
But the fact that the ACC is overrated doesn’t just manifest itself in Clemson, SC. UNCCH has gone undefeated in their non-conference slate by playing sub-par competition and only beating UNCA by 11. What would A10 ranked teams Xavier, URI and Dayton be at in the polls if they were in the ACC? Probably top 10 right now. The A-10 has 6 teams in the top 40 of RPI (Xavier, Duquesne, St. Joe’s, URI, UMASS and Dayton), the ACC has 3 (UNCCH, FSU, DUke), but I’m not going to make an argument that the A-10 is better than the ACC, it isn’t. It’s just better than the ACC in basketball right.
All the talk about Charlotte being a second rate school because we don’t have football will be ending soon enough with the addition of a football program… but with ACC football the only big time game in North Carolina I can’t help but follow it. And it sucks. What was the ACC record in bowl games this year? It was 2-6, by far the worst of any major conference and even worse in winning % than CUSA which was 2-4.
January 11th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
[...] January 11, 2008 in College Basketball, College Sports I tell it like it is about the ACC over on my 49er President Blog. [...]