Dave Sez

You said almost exactly what I was going to add. Let me add this link though to show how much more important the ACC tournament was before 1980, even after they started allowing a 2nd team, because the regions were unbalanced. Given travel costs in the past, it is understandable but it makes it difficult to compare across eras.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_NCAA_Men's_Division_I_Basketball_Tournament

This shows just how great Indiana was in 1976 and why UVa's upset of UNC in the ACC tournament final was so crushing. The regions were unbalanced then and Indiana winning the region was much tougher than winning the Final Four.

Why? Look at the Mid-East regional line-up and the UPI rankings: Indiana(1), Marquette(2), Alabama(6), and UNC(8). That is the two best teams in the country were in the same initial bracket, and four of the top 8 teams were in that one regional, and if you go by the AP, it was five of the top ten teams in that regional.

It took 5 wins to win it all then.

Indiana's first win was against a top-twenty team, St. John's (18). Its second win was against Alabama, number (6). In the regional final and pseudo-national championship, Indiana beat the number (2) team in the nation, Marquette. In the National Semi-final, they took out defending champ UCLA (5) easily and then beat Michigan, who was only number (9) for the 3rd time that year in the finals. Indiana finshed 32-0 with Bob Knight tying Frank McGuire's record for most wins in a season without a loss and did it by facing the most brutal post-season schedule, but at least, unlike the ACC, Indiana didn't have three extra bruising games back to back to back.

For ACC teams to win back then, like NC State in 1974, they had to win 7 post-season games in a row, since the ACC had a bye then for the champions. That is brutal.

Had Carolina beaten UVA, they would have had a virtual walk to the Final Four. Rutgers had not played anybody all year and was way, way overrated, getting pummeled in the Semi-finals by Michigan. Rutgers beat, get this, VMI in the Regional Final. UConn, pre-Big East was another "power" in the region. For the most part, during the unbalanced region phase, winning the ACC tournament almost guaranteed a spot in the Final Four.

Another thing that shows the importance of the tournament then versus now, is that unlike what we often hear, upsets were not very common in terms of the tournament winner. The best team during the regular season almost always won the ACC during the period between 1963 and 1975.

Carolina finished first in the ACC during the regular season in 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971 and 1972 and won the tournament every year except 1971, losing to the Gamecocks who were only 1 game back in the regular season. Duke finished first in 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1966 and won the tournament every year except 1965, when State won, who was only 1 game back. State finished first in 1973 and 1974 and won the tournament both years. This is why the 1970 loss by the Gamecocks was such a big deal. It was a rare loss by the regular season champ, and an undefeated one at that.

After the NCAA expanded in 1975, it quickly became common for the top regular season team not to win the tournament. Coaches are not dumb and just as in horseracing, most of them know that if you apply the whip too much, you will wear out the ride. 3 of the last 4 national champions from the ACC did not win the ACC tournament and the smart money now says that expending any energy or risking injuries in winning the conference tournament is simply not worth it if you are already guaranteed a number one or two seed. Duke seems to be the only major national program that continues to place great emphasis on winning the conference tournament. Roy Williams has never made the Final Four, after winning his conference tournament, nor has Gary Williams or Terry Holland. In 1984, UVa had a losing record in conference and lost in the first round of the ACC tournament and then went on to the Final Four.

The last ACC tournament that had much meaning at all in terms of winning the NCAA's was probably the 1982 tournament, where Carolina edged UVA, 47-45. This allowed them to stay at home in the East Regional, where they barely edge JMU in Charlotte and Alabama and Villanova in fairly tight games in Raleigh, while UVA lost to Birmingham.

UVa was a team that had ACC tournament "magic dust" on them in 1976 and 1977. They were mediocre in 1976 and downright awful in 1977 and yet won five out of 6 tournament games over two years against topflight competition. In the NCAA's, however, the Cavs reverted to form and went out in the first round against a weak Depaul team.

Outstanding post, William. Probably the best comment Dave Sez has ever had.

I'd never read about the correlation between the top regular season team and the ACC Tournament champion before. It really is interesting to see how that changed at about the time the NCAA Tournament started allowing more than one team. It's pretty clear evidence that coaches generally don't stress the ACC Tournament like they used to.

Great stuff.

The last ACC tournament that had much meaning at all in terms of winning the NCAA's was probably the 1982 tournament, where Carolina edged UVA, 47-45.

I'd have to say the 1983 tournament in which NC State won was "more meaningful" since some thought State would not even make the NCAA tournament without an ACC tournment championship -- which of course, they did win.

The problem with using winning percentage for the NCAA tournament is that if you lose you do not continue to play any games(except back when there was a consolation round I think). If you have a really good team one year and win 4 games in the tournament then you can lose in the first round for the next 4 years and still be .500. It will always tend to skew high. I am not sure what a better way to do it statistically would be though, perhaps average tournament wins per year(you would have to decide how to count years the team did not make the tournament).

Okay, I realized that doing average tournament wins per year would completely skew things toward modern times as there are more games, maybe wins/amount of games to win championship/ year...any other ideas?

I thought of NC State later and obviously that is correct but NC
State's win was part of its over all amazing upset run which probably would not have been possible without State winning the tournament that year, but I don't know if we know for sure whether or not State could have gotten an at large bid for making the conference finals, had they not upset UVa.

If we are assuming that State would not have gotten a bid without winning, then we can push it back a year from 1982 to 1983 or so. My basic assumption was that any team that is going to win the NCAA title is likely to be no lower than a 3 seed, but sometimes teams break through and strange things happen like NC State in 1983 or Kansas in 1988 or even Florida last year who was no worldbeater during the regular season.

But the trend only intensified after 1975 and the ACC tournament had less and less of an effect, not only upon placement, but also upon morale from losing, to the point where starting with the 1990 Blue Devils, four of the last six ACC champions did not win the ACC tournament.

Before 1990, we always used to hear that no ACC team had ever won the title without first winning the conference tourney. When we get to the point now where winning the tournament actually seems to have a negative effect with regard to winning the national title, the tourney has become nothing more than a cocktail party.

iceman wrote:

I thought of NC State later and obviously that is correct but NC State's win was part of its over all amazing upset run which probably would not have been possible without State winning the tournament that year, but I don't know if we know for sure whether or not State could have gotten an at large bid for making the conference finals, had they not upset UVa.

I read somewhere recently (and can't remember where) that an NCAA committee person said that once State made the ACC finals, they were in, win or lose. That makes sense, because they really were a good team, but lost a bunch of games when Whittenberg was out with his broken foot. He returned just before the ACC Tournament. The NCAA selection committee usually takes those sorts of injuries/returns into account.

And just to follow up:

In 1975, the first year of NCAA expansion to 2 teams per conference, Maryland won the regular season, but Carolina won the tournament.

In 1976, Carolina won the regular season and UVa won the tournament.

In 1977, Carolina won both.

In 1978, Carolina won the regular season and Duke won the tournament.

In 1979, Carolina and Duke tied in the regular season, Carolina won the tournament.

In 1980, Lefty had one of his best teams and won the regular season, but Duke won the tournament.

In 1981, UVa went 13-1 in the regular season, Carolina won the tournament.

In 1982, UVa and Carolina tied in the regular season, Carolina won the tournament;

In 1983, Carolina and UVa tied, State won the tournament.

In 1984, Carolina won the regular season, Maryland won the tournament.

Every single one of the above teams that won or tied in the regular season but lost in the tournament was granted an at large bid.