Read opposing arguments from Loyal Homer and Bleacher Fan about which college basketball conferences they believe are the toughest to win this season.
More than any other conference in college basketball, the ACC is already showing it is the toughest to win. The conference is loaded with tough teams, from top to bottom. It is home to some of the most impressive rising stars in the country. It is not a conference with a number one, very strong team that seems poised to dominate. Usually when a conference does not have one strong team that stands above all of the rest it is deemed a weakness. However, in the 2009-2010 season, the fact that the ACC has a tremendous group of teams overall – tremendous parity – makes it strong and tougher than any other conference to win.
The Miami Hurricanes currently have a 15-4 overall record, but are last in the ACC. The second to last team in the ACC is the young yet strong defending national champion North Carolina Tar Heels. These are the same Tar Heels that defeated then 15th ranked Ohio State and then-9th ranked Michigan State (take THAT, Bleacher Fan’s argument). North Carolina also lost by two on the road at undefeated and soon-to-be-ranked-number-one Kentucky in December. Currently the two teams in the conference most experts believe are the best are “duking” it out for third in the conference. Seventh ranked Duke and 17th ranked Clemson played Saturday night, with Duke winning but by no means taking a stranglehold on the conference lead.
That, folks, is conference quality and depth.
Just review the past week for the ACC, a week with many games where the cream of the crop in the conference had the opportunity to assert their rightful place atop arguably the most highly regarded basketball conference in the country.
Clemson went on the road but lost by two to a strong Georgia Tech team on Tuesday. So much for Clemson beginning to earn respect and dominate the conference. More surprise outcomes were peppered along the week’s slate of games. Last Wednesday gave us two shockers – seventh ranked Duke lost by 14 on the road at N.C. State, and 24th ranked North Carolina lost to Wake Forest at home by 13. The ACC seems to be a mystery at times, making the eventual conference champ hard to predict.
No team dominates the statistical categories in the conference, either. Florida State leads the conference in blocked shots, but Clemson leads in steals – by over two steals per game – and North Carolina leads in rebounding margin but is last in scoring defense. Duke leads in scoring margin but is just sixth in field goal percentage. Virginia leads the conference in three point field goal percentage, but is last in defending the three point line. The leading individual scorer for the conference? Why, it’s junior Virginia Tech guard Malcolm Delaney, of course, who scores nearly 20 points per game. Leading rebounder? Al-Farouq Aminu from Wake Forest, a sophomore.
There is no dominant team in the conference and the parity between teams is demonstrated well in both the team and individual stats.
The conference is still truly up for grabs. Any team in the conference has the talent to make a run late in the season and claim the regular season crown. Right now, the post-season conference tournament is poised to be one of the more exciting ACC tournaments in memory, where qualifying teams one through nine have the talent to make a strong run and win the conference. No other conference can boast the strength and depth of the ACC, making it the toughest of all college basketball conferences to win this season.
