I lived in Big East country in the '80s in Connecticut. ACC was always considered on par with Big East or better by the knowledgeable folks up there. I now live in Chicago, in the middle of B1G country. As much as they like to tout their B1G teams, they acknowledge that top-to-bottom, no conference stacks up to ACC. The ACC is to basketball what the SEC is to football. They may not have the best teams every year, but they beat each other up and always has at least 1 or 2 teams vying for the national championship. As good as many of the Big East teams are, there is no question the college basketball perception is it's the ACC and then everyone else. Conference strength fluctuates from year-to-year, but the ACC is seldom, if ever, really down.
so, really.
I think that perception is starting to see some erosion and part of it might be a function of the Big East hoops programs we brought in. Also, the Big East & B1G have been beating up on each other for years, but when the bubble comes up, their middle of the pack teams always seem to be getting benefit of the doubt, while the ACC teams on the fringes seem to get dismissed.
Beating up on each other or not, with a 20 game schedule, will we start seeing 10 ACC schools in the tourney? If not, that rep is not going to hold up over time.
Our hoops budget is the biggest mitigating factor, because it's one of the worst in the nation, but if the ACC is such a big deal to take on the big boys, how come it took like 8 candidates to land on CJP when Sasquatch was willing to pay up for a coach?
The ACC is not a big selling point for coaches when there are so many great jobs out there, especially when staring down a rebuild job in the ACC. Reality is that coaches don't really have much interest in that compared to their long time viability of receiving a big paycheck.
