College Basketball: This Season's Big Ten, Big East and ACC Conferences Are Even

For all the press these days, you might think the ACC is really bad and the Big Ten and Big East are really good. There is little to prove this at the moment, though.

Let's start with the Big Ten-ACC Challenge. The Big Ten won six games, the ACC won five. If Virginia Tech had not lost a close one in overtime, the ACC would have won the challenge.

What about the record against the Big East? The ACC is 4-6 against the Big East, with games played by NC State (10th in the ACC) against Syracuse and Georgetown.

So what about records? True, look at Clemson, and you see a ton of cream-puff wins. Yet, the records of Syracuse and several other Big East and Big Ten teams are—at least—just as suspect.

The ACC is 184-127 or for a 59 percent winning percentage, the Big Ten is 190-124 for a 60.5 percent winning percentage and the Big East is 280-164 for a 63 percent winning percentage. Not much of a difference.

The ACC has been hammered for several seasons by those who appear unbiased, such as Jay Bilas (who is a Duke graduate).

But wait.

In general, Duke graduates and fans alike seem to enjoy calling the ACC down, especially when it comes to the North Carolina Tar Heels. It helps in recruiting.

Others in the media who constantly harp on the ACC being down and bad, are those who have done so for years, including Bill Raftery, a New Jersey native who used to coach Seton Hall. Listen to them, and there is no good in any ACC team.

The biased commentary will be available during this year's NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. You listen and decide.

You can even read articles that say UNC has been out of the NCAA tournament for almost two years. Of course they have been. If you miss one tournament, that is what happens, and in my view, the Tar Heels deserved to get in last year.

Finally, it is hard to see how the ACC will not be adversely affected by the constant comments from everyone about how few teams deserve to be in the tournament this year.

Yet with the field now expanded to 68 teams, will it be packed with Big East and Big Ten teams again? If so, this is neither fair nor consistent with records.

In fact, the only consistency is with the commentators from the Big Ten and Big East. No more, no less.