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Dick Vitale calls out ACC, says league has ‘taken a real hit’ in modern era of college hoops
By Mark Kern
Published:
Dick Vitale is back calling college basketball games, much to the delight of many fans across the country. On Saturday night, he was on the call for the ACC Tournament Championship between Duke and Louisville.
The ACC has had a down year, with the conference potentially looking at just 3 teams making it to the NCAA Tournament. These struggles of the conference hit a spot with Vitale, who blasted the conference during the first half of the game.
“This league’s gotta do a better job of handling the NIL and the Transfer Portal and get stronger,” Vitale said. “This conference, for years, was the best. And I’m telling you right now, it has taken a real hit.”
When comparing the ACC to the other Power 4 conferences, it has been a brutal year for the conference. According to Joe Lunardi’s most recent bracketology update, he has the ACC at 3 teams in the final field. That is a wide gap from the other 3 power conferences with the SEC (13), B1G (9) and the Big 12 (8) all having way more teams in the field. That is also behind the Big East (5), as well as the Mountain West (4).
Louisville, Duke and Clemson are the 3 locks in the conference, and all of those teams figure to be a high seed in the NCAA tournament. North Carolina is the only other team from the conference that might sneak in, but its 1-12 record in Quad 1 games may be the reason the team stays home in March.
For context, the last time the ACC had fewer than 4 teams in the NCAA Tournament came all the way back in 2000. The league hasn’t been below 5 teams in March Madness since 2013.
