Down Year for ACC? Only in the Polls

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Gary Williams didn't hesitate when asked the question, but coaches in the Atlantic Coast Conference generally are as quick as any when their league's honor is at stake.

"We should be ranked. I don't think that's too much of an argument,'' the Maryland coach said Tuesday afternoon, the day before his team was to face Clemson at Comcast Center. "But opinions are formed, and it's tough to break opinions.''

The opinion to which Williams referred is that the ACC is down this year -- and it manifested itself in this week's AP rankings, when no more than one conference team, Duke, appeared in the top 25, for the first time since December 1977.

Six other teams, including Maryland, have been ranked over the course of the season, but No. 5 Duke was left on its own this week when Wake Forest dropped out from No. 25 and was not replaced by any conference brethren. Not even the Terps, who had gone 3-0 the previous week to raise their records to 19-7 overall and 9-3 in the ACC, good for second place.

But the near-miss by one team in particular -- and, for that matter, the absence of any other team besides Duke from the rankings -- is only part of the conflict ACC coaches see in the national perception of the league. A case can be made to include at least another team in the weekly rankings, such as Maryland or third-place Virginia Tech (21-5, 8-4). The stronger case can be made for the ACC being more balanced and having more depth than other "Big Six'' conferences, conferences which have more teams in the rankings but also with more teams dragging the bottom.

The 12-team ACC is ranked in the top three, and as high as first, in overall RPI by most compilations. RPI, of course, carries far more weight in NCAA tournament selection than either the media or coaches' polls. "It's funny how that's overlooked while everyone pays attention to the polls,'' Williams deadpanned.

And if the bracket projections -- albeit ones put together 2 1/2 weeks before Selection Sunday -- are accurate at all, as many as seven ACC teams will make the field of 65. That will come as a relief to ACC supporters who, for the most part, grade their league by how many bids it gets in comparison to the competition. In the ACC, "disaster'' is not defined by being shut out of a February ranking, but by a postseason like 2006, when only four teams made the field and none advanced beyond the Sweet 16.

However, most projected brackets for the upcoming tournament have five of those teams seeded eighth or lower. That's as much out of character for the ACC (which is not unaccustomed to having two No. 1 seeds) as is the lack of ranked teams in any one week.

An ideal example was Wednesday night's game at Maryland: the Terps' RPI as the week began was 36, and Clemson (19-8 and 7-6) has an RPI of 35. Georgia Tech's is 33, even though its last-second loss at Maryland Saturday dropped it below .500 in the ACC; Virginia Tech, thanks to a strength-of-schedule ranking (142) that has become a national punchline, has a 44 RPI, and Florida State is at 40.

In all, with February not over yet, eight ACC teams have at least 18 wins, and their RPIs , outside of Duke at No. 2, range from Wake Forest's 21 to Miami's 88 (thanks, again, to a weak nonconference schedule in which the Hurricanes went undefeated).

Even with the aforementioned teams having few, if any, walkovers the rest of the conference schedule, the seven teams being projected to make the NCAAs (excluding Miami, with nine conference losses) are not even really considered "bubble'' teams. "We've done a nice job. We're playing in a difficult league,'' Clemson coach Oliver Purnell told reporters earlier this week, in defense of his tournament chances, "and right now we're 7-5. I think that would be the prevailing thought.''

What boosts the ACC's overall power rating is the fact that its last-place, and lowest-rated, team, North Carolina State, has an RPI of just 116 -- respectable for a major-conference cellar-dweller, particularly one that also defeated Duke. Losses in the ACC, even to the bottom third, are not considered particularly bad losses, and while the unbalanced schedule in place since the league expanded for football in 2004 has made scrutinizing the standings more complicated, this year's contenders do not have notably inflated or unrepresentative records.

Other power conferences are far more top-heavy. It's a real challenge to pick at the Big East's credentials, but three of its 16 programs have RPIs below 100: Providence, Rutgers and DePaul (at 182).Four teams each in the Big 12, Big Ten and SEC are below 100 in RPI, including Indiana at 213 (below Arkansas-Pine Bluff from the perpetually bottom-rated SWAC) and LSU, winless in conference, at 218, below Delaware State of frequent play-in participant MEAC. Five members of the Pac-10 (that would be half) are below that mark.

All of this presents an argument for the ACC's image being far behind reality. Blowing the argument, and the image, out of the water, is North Carolina. The Tar Heels -- nominally the defending national champions -- are not only eroding the league's reputation with their precipitous slide, they are killing their colleague's ratings, now that wins over that storied program no longer count for as much, and losses to it would now be devastating. Ask Maryland about that; two Sundays ago, a homecourt rout of the Heels did little or nothing for its national profile, whereas its win at home over the eventual national champions last season is widely considered the one victory that launched the Terps into the NCAA tournament.

"That North Carolina's not good shouldn't affect how we're ranked,'' counters Maryland's Williams. "I think that teams outside of Carolina as a group, besides Duke, are better than they were last year.''

Still, North Carolina does present a twin problem. The record, going into Wednesday's home game against Florida State, is bad by any standards: 14-13 overall, 3-9 and next-to-last in the ACC, losers of 10 of 13 and now gutted by injury. (Still, the RPI is 92, better than a team on a skid like that would figure to be.) The damage to the program's reputation, and by extension that of the conference for which it's one of the standard-bearers, is worse.

It's reflected in a historically dubious landmark in the polls this week. The ACC has little choice but to look forward to March and dwell as little as possible on the events of late February. Next month, Williams pointed out, "They're not supposed to go by the polls."