Congratulations, You're Still a Basketball Conference

When the Cavaliers make this weekend's trip down to Chapel Hill, you know as a football fan that the Tar Heels return trip won't occur until next season.  And that's OK, its the nature of football scheduling.  But it reminds me that when the basketball team makes a similar trip in late January, UNC will, as in football, not be making the return trip until the following season.  Similarly, Duke will be gracing the confines of the JPJ this season, but there will be no return trip to Cameron until 2011.  It begs the question -- we're giving that up for what exactly?

Six years ago, the Atlantic Coast Conference expanded its membership to twelve teams.  In came Miami, Virginia Tech, and (out of left field) Boston College.  The idea was to make the ACC a major football conference, complete with large TV contract, annual conference championship game, and more BCS bowl game appearances.  There were rumblings from the likes of Mike Krzyzewski and Gary Williams that it would be bad for the gold standard that is ACC Basketball, but after college presidents reminded them who paid their checks those criticisms largely fell by the wayside. 

Expectations were that this might finally be the year that the ACC lived up to that master plan.  Four teams cracked the Preseason AP Top 25, and a number of other programs, including Clemson and the U, were supposed to make strides back towards respectability.  It was thought that 2009 at least had to be better than 2008, when mediocrity reigned.  No ACC team finished better than 5-3 in the conference, a four-loss Va. Tech team went to the Orange Bowl, and a 7-5 Clemson team went to the Gator.  

It hasn't happened.  On opening weekend, Alabama ran over Virginia Tech, Cal thumped Maryland, and perennial Big 12 Doormat Baylor beat Wake Forest.  And that wasn't even the worst of it.  Duke and Virginia (as we all remember) lost to 1-AA teams.  It hasn't gotten better since Week 1.  Mountain West stalwart TCU now has a pair of road wins against ACC teams on its resume.  Maryland lost (again) to Middle Tennessee State.  Florida State was dropped by S. Fla. over the weekend.  And after all the noise about Miami's revival, it appears they were just beating up on fellow ACC weaklings in light of Va. Tech's demolition of the Canes this past weekend. 

So on January 5, 2010, some middling ACC team, who will have won a conference championship game that won't come close to selling out, will get to play the Big East Champion or an at-large opponent in a meaningless bowl game.  And seven or eight other schools will get to go to contracted bowls too, all the way down to the Eagle Bank Bowl in D.C.  College athletic departments will rake in more money, and the ACC can call itself a football conference when it goes 4-4 in bowl play (even though two or three of those wins will come against MAC teams or service academies). And everyone can look forward to next football season, when the U might really be back, or Florida State might return to national prominence, or Butch Davis might complete the turnaround in Chapel Hill, or Va. Tech might stay healthy.    

Among all those mights, Sylven Landesberg will be looking forward to what might be his only trip to the cathedral that is the Dean Dome, or preparing for what might be his one chance to help vanquish Duke on his team's home floor.  Of course, he'll get to play Virginia Tech, Maryland, N.C. State, and Miami twice each this season.  I'm sure that's the ACC Basketball he was looking forward to when he signed his LOI.  But hey, Wake Forest might get to play football in D.C. in December.   

So again I ask, the ACC did this for what exactly?