At the risk of sounding like an 80-year-old curmudgeon, here are 3 things wrong with the ACC men's basketball tournament:
1) GREED. The ACC will barely look at a venue like Charlotte’s Time Warner Cable Arena anymore because it’s “too small” with a seating capacity of around 19,000. It far prefers arenas of 25,000 or more. That has finally come back to bite the league this season when it had to put tickets on sale to the general public for the massive Georgia Dome – the first time that has happened since 1966.
2) WRONG DAY FOR FINAL. The ACC tournament final should be mammoth. It should be huge. It should be a showcase.
Instead, it gets totally crushed publicity-wise within about 3 hours of ending by Selection Sunday. I know this is a tradition, but still… the league would be wise to make its final a Saturday afternoon or evening event, so the champ could at least have a wider window to bask in. The solution: make the tournament Wednesday through Saturday instead of Thursday through Sunday.
3) TOO MANY TEAMS. I understand the financial realities. I know why the ACC expanded. But oh, how I long for a tight, eight-team, three-day tournament. This current 12-team monstrosity means the best team you see on Day 1 is only the fifth-best team in the ACC -- it's a slow day where I can always hear the cocktail glasses clinking, to borrow a Roy Williams analogy. Wake me when Day 2 rolls around.
We're moving!
9 years ago
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9 comments:
I understand your gripes, Scott, but most of us can't afford the donation levels required to even be in the lottery for tickets. I've seen hundreds of Wake Forest games in my lifetime, but never the ACC tournament.
There are obvious solutions for items 1 & 2, but issue #3 has no solution.
Only allow the top 8 teams in.
I agree completely with #1 and have come around on the Wed-Sat idea. Back in the day ACC Friday used to be like a holiday, but it has lost some of its luster with expansion. We know the ACC isn't going to contract, and they aren't going to reduce the number of teams in the tournament to eight, so I'm with you on moving the final up a day.
Do what every major conference should do - only run the tournament for teams who will NOT be at-large selections. That way, the automatic bid can go to someone who COULD possibly pull of an '83 Wolfpack type run.
Actually, the one thing wrong with the ACC tourament this year is its existence. UNC is probably going to win the NCAA tournament. The rest of the conference is a joke, and a very bad joke at that. Match up any of the 4 SEC teams with byes in the SEC tourney against any of the 11 non-UNC teams in the ACC, and I'll take the SEC team every day of the week and twice on Sunday. The ACC said it could expand to make its football relevant and keep its basketball at the highest level. It has done neither.
Whats so bad about a 'public sale' of tickets? I wish the Masters would do that. Oh yeah, the Masters is a prestigious event. A public sale would never happen.
J,
That is the dumbest comment I have read in a long time. The SEC is down, way down, as a conference this year. UNC, Duke and Wake have all been ranked #1 at one point this year and Clemson has been in the top 10. Please name any SEC teams that have been in the top 10 this year?
Scott, the REAL greedsters are uptown arena boosters who just HAD to replace the 20-year-old Coliseum with a new half-BILLION dollar toy within waking distance of the Observer's office.
During the referendum campaign, it was EXPLICITLY pointed out by arena foes that Charlotte would lose major events to larger venues if the uptown arena were to be built, and over 57,000 Charlotteans went to the polls to keep our existing, "ACC-Approved" facility.
So now Charlotte is locked out of the ACC Tournament sweepstakes, and we're stuck with Bob "I'm so greedy I charged the unemployed $20 for my job fair" Johnson.
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