Which ACC basketball teams enter the 2020 ACC Tournament with the most to prove? Which teams — with a bad showing in Greensboro, N.C. — will have the greatest reason to doubt themselves heading into the NCAA Tournament?
The answer from this vantage point seems obvious: the Louisville Cardinals and the North Carolina State Wolfpack.
Florida State has won the outright ACC regular-season title. That is a phenomenal and historic accomplishment which will not fade away if the Seminoles lose to Duke in the ACC semifinals on Friday. Florida State would not want to lose its quarterfinal game, but as long as the Noles do that, they should get the first No. 2 NCAA Tournament seed in program history. FSU has already proved itself on a large scale.
Virginia, the No. 2 seed, somehow won 15 ACC games this season. Tony Bennett won a national championship a year ago, and yet THIS might be his best coaching job ever. Virginia has already overachieved far beyond anyone’s imagination. The Hoos aren’t a highly burdened team heading into Greensboro.
Duke is an interesting case. You could make the claim that Duke has a lot to prove as the No. 4 seed in the ACC Tournament. One could also note that Duke needs a good showing if it is to move from a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament to a No. 3 seed, which would mean the Blue Devils would avoid playing a No. 1 seed in the Sweet 16. There are ample goals for Duke in G-Boro. However, the NCAA Tournament — not the ACC Tournament — has been Duke’s stumbling block in the past 16 years. Figuring out the Big Dance, not the ACC, is Coach K’s true challenge… so no, Duke isn’t the bearer of the most pressure this coming week before Selection Sunday.
The two teams which carry the most urgency to the Greensboro Coliseum are Louisville and N.C. State.
Start with N.C. State. The Wolfpack are not a total lock for the NCAA Tournament. They will probably make the field, but as the No. 5 seed, they do need to avoid a first-round loss. Then they could breathe more easily. N.C. State would then face Duke in the quarterfinals. After all of the ups and downs of the season, the Wolfpack and Kevin Keatts badly need a pick-me-up which could not only give the team confidence heading into the NCAAs, but a jolt which gives the program a sense of hope for the future.
North Carolina State would derive a lot of benefit from making the NCAA Tournament, but the Wolfpack have not overcome their (Sendekian, Gottfriedian) penchant for pronounced inconsistency and volatility. This ACC Tournament is a proving-ground moment, and if the Wolfpack don’t get a significant result in G-Boro, they will have ample reason to be disappointed.
Louisville is not a bubble team — unlike N.C. State — but the Cardinals carry enormous pressure in their own right.
Florida State won the regular-season title. Virginia spectacularly overachieved. Duke is measured by what it does in the NCAA Tournament. Louisville hasn’t done well in the ACC Tournament, and Chris Mack lost early in last year’s NCAA Tournament. Louisville needs a productive ACC Tournament which feeds into a strong NCAA Tournament. The Cardinals might still be in their evolutionary stages under Mack, but there were times earlier this season (the Michigan win in non-conference play, at Duke in ACC competition) when the Cardinals looked like an elite team.
They haven’t looked like an elite team on a regular basis.
Louisville has shown how high its ceiling can potentially be, but that version of the Cards doesn’t always show up.
One could make the case that Louisville is, on balance, ahead of schedule under Mack — not this season, but in a larger context. I won’t try to litigate that point. I will, however, note that if Louisville fails to make the ACC Tournament final in a year when the league has had only four particularly good teams, it will seem that the Cardinals didn’t make the strong impression they could have (and maybe should have).
Louisville is trying to rebuild the swagger, attitude, and standards of a blue-blood program. Underwhelming tournament performances will undercut that larger project.
UofL and N.C. State come to Greensboro with a lot of work to do, and a lot of skeptics to convert.,. most of all, their own selves, not the outside world.
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