THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603100207
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
DATELINE: GREENSBORO LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
The ACC tournament played on Saturday before a capacity crowd at the Greensboro Coliseum, despite the absence of hometown favorites or riveting rivalries.
When Duke, North Carolina State and, most surprisingly, North Carolina were bounced Friday, the tournament was stripped of representatives from the Triangle area, the epicenter of ACC hoops.
The Tobacco State, it's said, hasn't been this let down since ``Hee Haw'' was canceled.
Not that you could tell from Saturday's turnout, announced at 23,566. The high rollers, school boosters and hangers-on were out in force early in the afternoon to watch a team from Atlanta outscore players from inside the Washington Beltway.
The crowd stayed around when the little school with the big center from Winston-Salem took on the upstarts from Clemson.
While waiting for their Tigers' turn to come, Clemson fans amused themselves by playfully taunting the Carolina boosters in the next section over.
Don't try telling anyone down here and around the league that this tournament has been drained of passion over the years, that winning the ACC intramural playoffs can be barely relevant to the perception of a team's season.
Once, when only the survivor of this event was permitted to play for the NCAA title, the tournament meant too much. Now it means very little, except for middling teams that hope to win one or two games and impress the selection committee.
The ACC tournament is a cash cow that sparks a celebration of college basketball under one tent. It works, too, primarily because of tradition and the avidity of its fans.
It's a mistake, though, to assume that the conference basketball tournament is a good concept in general.
The ACC clambake has spawned a series of imitators, so that now the airwaves and sports pages are inundated with coverage of ``important'' games being played in conferences that mean next to nothing to anyone.
The Mid-American Conference. The North Atlantic Conference. The Patriot League. The Sun Belt. The Metro Atlantic Athletic Association. The Colonial Athletic Association. All are ACC copycats.
With the possible exception of the Big East and Southeastern Conference tournaments, reports and highlights from these exercises in March Madness far exceed the popular demand.
In the name of making money and getting a game on ESPN, mid-level and small-time leagues compromise the integrity of their regular seasons.
In the Southern Conference tournament final played last week at the Greensboro Coliseum before about 5,000, Western Carolina upset Davidson to claim the league's automatic NCAA berth.
Although it defeated Western Carolina twice while dominating the conference, Davidson isn't expected to make the cut for the Field of 64.
This sort of thing happens all over the country. A team that has demonstrated superiority from December to March is sacrificed to a system that values the quick buck and TV guest shot. Because it's so good and deep, the ACC manages to avoid these sort of injustices. No one would be surprised if six of its teams advanced into the tournament field.
It all depends, noted hopeful Maryland coach Gary Williams, on the ``numbers crunching.''
He's right about that. But isn't it too bad that more drama is created by the numbers crunchers than by today's ACC tournament title game? by CNB