The ACC Tournament and the Carolina Brand - IC Daily | College Basketball

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All right.

It is Tuesday, March 10th.

I'm Tommy Ashley.

That is Greg Barnes.

Johnny T. Shared as always is our sponsor.

ACC Tournament starts today.

Still the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

The ACC Tournament is a Friday Saturday and Sunday deal.

And I will not let go of that, Greg Barnes.

They'll have to get it out of my cold, dead hands.

But unfortunately, it is 2026 and it starts on a Tuesday.

Carolina, of course, has a double buy.

I don't play until Thursday night.

But as folks can see, the scroll at the bottom.

Does the ACC Tournament matter?

I have opinions.

Greg, you have opinions.

Let's talk about the opinions that matter.

What do you say?

All right.

Let's go back in history a little bit.

I think one of the reasons has become such a hot topic

for not really for North Carolina fans,

but has been for North Carolina fans for the past 20 plus years

is because of one Roy Williams.

And I think it's important to provide some context to his popular

and infamous quotation about the ACC Tournament being

a cocktail party.

If you go back to when he arrived in Chapel Hill as head coach

for the 2003, 2004 basketball season,

Roy Williams was coming off of a national championship game

appearance.

Kansas lost to Syracuse.

Camarlo Anthony in that crowd.

And Roy at the time was arguably the best coach in the country.

Really, the only knock on Roy was that he had not won

a national title.

But if you look at what he had done in the previous 12 years,

he'd won five big eight regular season championships

and four big 12 regular season championships.

So nine regular season championships,

the previous 12 years.

He also won four big eight slash big 12 conference tournaments.

And what Roy's stance was was basically, you know,

he believed in Dean Smith's opinion that it's not a long weekend

that defines whether or not a team is really good.

You figure that out over the course of the regular season,

over months.

And so because of that, Roy believed that if you have a really

good regular season and win the conference regular season

championship, that sets you up for a deep run and the NCAA

tournament.

And he was correct.

But just to kind of go back and where those comments come from,

before the ACC tournament started in 2004,

UNC hosted its typical pre ACC tournament press conference

in Chapel Hill.

It was the Wednesday before the tournament started.

And Roy was asked about the impact of the ACC tournament.

This is his quote.

To me, I don't know what purpose it serves.

To be honest, is it to make money?

That's fine.

If that's what it is.

In the old days at a purpose because we were the only one.

We were the granddaddy and it got more attention than anything in the nation.

Now everybody has one.

There are other leagues that have big time tournaments as well.

You beat up on people for three months and then you go for three days

and try to beat up on the same people again.

Later in those comments, he said, quote, he called it, quote,

just a huge cocktail party for four or five days.

It's humorous because I believe at that time Duke

had also just won five straight ACC tournament championships.

So I think the context is very important.

Roy really looked at it as, I'm not so concerned with winning the ACC tournament

because my team is getting ready to make a national championship run.

That's how we viewed it.

Now, I will push back on critics who say,

the Roy didn't take it seriously.

If you don't think Roy Williams was trying to win it every single thing that he did

and still does to this day,

then you probably didn't know Roy Williams very well.

One of my favorite anecdotes about Roy Williams is the story that Steve Robinson told

when they were at a recruits house.

Him is Roy and as they're leaving the house and walking towards the rental car,

Roy starts running towards the car

and grabs the door handle and says, first,

it seems like I didn't know we were racing.

And Roy said we're competing every single day

in every single thing we do.

That speaks to the competitive drive of Roy Williams.

But I think it's really more speaks to the fact that Roy had such an emphasis

on winning the regular season and then carrying that forward into the NCAA tournament.

That's the basis of those comments.

Now, how does that factor into today?

Well, Carolina, at this point in time,

has not consistently been at the level of what Roy Williams expected.

If you go back to, you know, I mentioned the success he had in the big, big eight and big 12.

In his first nine seasons at Carolina,

you and see won the ACC regular season championship six times.

That was the standard.

But if you look at what Carolina has done,

while Carolina has won 18 ACC tournament titles in the history of the league,

which dates back to the 53, 54 season,

Carolina has won three this century.

They need back to 2000.

And if North Carolina does not win the ACC tournament this weekend,

it will be the longest stretch in school history of not winning an ACC tournament championship.

The previous mark,

you got to go back 60 years,

because North Carolina won an ACC tournament title in 57,

and they did not win another one until 1967.

That's how wide of a gap we're talking about.

And so I think it's about time, Tommy,

that UNC starts understanding the importance of not just the river season,

also not just the final four in this electronic.

But the ACC tournament championship matters.

It's hardware, it counts.

It's something that UNC has lifted up for a long, long time.

And so yes, I think it does matter.

And I think as Carolina goes through these troubling waters that has been on this decade,

even more reason to try to win the ACC tournament,

since winning the ACC river season championship has become much more difficult with so many teams in play.

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And we've talked about this before,

but really, if you're watching this,

and you did not listen to Coast to Coast on Sunday night,

go back and listen to the whole show,

but later in the show towards the end,

Sheryl and Millen sort of goes on a rant a little bit,

and he's 100% right about how it's unacceptable

that Carolina has failed to win the ACC tournament.

And it's not just a Hubert Davis thing,

it's clearly a Roy Williams thing as well,

because three times in 26 years

is just insane to think about Greg,

and granted, back in the day,

it was the only dance in town.

You had to win the tournament to get into the NCAA,

so it was a big deal then.

But to your point, for a program now,

and this could really spider into,

or shatter into a lot of different things

that we could talk about, and probably will,

when the season's over.

But it sort of feels like to me that the brand

of Carolina basketball and the ACC sort of faded out

a little bit now.

And I want to say all the way,

and we're not there yet.

But it puts a lot of pressure,

or it should put a lot of pressure on it,

and it doesn't seem to me that there is a lot of pressure,

or that there's a lot of pressure felt.

Does it feel that way to you,

or am I just sort of justifying why it doesn't seem

like it's a big deal to not win the ACC tournament

around Chapel Hill?

Well, and I think that's kind of what Roy led it to.

Roy had the program operating at such a high clip

that people didn't think much about the ACC tournament,

because it was kind of a bridge to the postseason.

And because of that, I mean,

a little bit of us arrogance,

a little bit of it is being overconfident,

getting a little heavy in your bridges,

all these things.

And I think with what we've seen from the program

over the, I mean, really, over the last decade,

we're getting close to being the last decade.

I mean, think about it from this perspective.

If we stop focusing on the ACC tournament,

because all we're focused on is the NCAA tournament,

we'll Carolina what last won a national championship in 2017?

How many elite eight game appearances

has Carolina had since 2017?

Do you know what the top of your head?

One.

One.

It was as an eight seed,

and kind of that wild miracle run back in 2022.

And it took a miracle to get it.

Right.

As an eight seed.

So for so long,

you kind of devalue the ACC tournament.

Well, then you say,

well, we do that because the NCAA tournament.

Well, now wait a minute.

If you've only been to one elite eight since 2017,

in this 2026,

what's next?

And I think that's the important part.

And you know, a lot of people talk about,

when you talk about Hubert Davis,

there's this desire to kind of go back to,

say, you know what,

it took Dean Smith several years.

And it did, for sure,

it took him five years to kind of get things together.

But then what happened?

In year number six,

in year number seven,

in year number eight,

we've seen one,

the ACC Revocies and Jammagehip,

the ACC tournament championship

and reached the final four in each of those three years.

And it took that step forward

for North Carolina to become this juggernaut,

Under Dean Smith.

And the ACC tournament was part of that.

And so I think that's an important way to approach it.

I mean, it's crazy.

If you go back to Michael Jordan,

hitting the shot against Georgetown to win the 1982 national championship since that year.

That's 42 was at 44 years ago. My goodness.

Carolina's won eight ACC tournament championships.

It's not that many for a program of of UNC's stature. Now Duke, of course, is one 13

since 2000.

And I just I just think it's a matter of if you want to skip over the ACC tournament because you're

having so much NCAA tournament success, that's fine. But that means you better have a lot of NCAA

tournament success. And we just have not seen that since that 2017 championship.

And so I just think it's something where North Carolina needs to start saying regular season's

important ACC tournament's important. And that sets us up for success in the NCAA tournament.

Yeah, I've got this a little bit of a smirk on my face because I'm thinking this is going to fire

a lot of people up to to talk about everything else that people have been talking about. Now I kind

of want to go there, but great. We're going to have to go there at some point. But you know,

Carolina's let's just let's leave it here on the ACC tournament. The importance of the ACC

tournament. I think it's a problem. I think it's a massive problem that the standards and the

expectations. Well, I ask you that. Are the expectations lower? I'll go there. Or do you think that

the expectations and the standard for Carolina basketball has been lowered in the last 26 years?

Well, and we'll say in the last nine since 17 national championship. Is that fair question?

It is a fair question. And I think if you go back to that 2016 and 2019 time period,

one thing that we talked about is that Carolina in those four years had earned three number one

seeds. And this is a way tournament and one number two seed. That is elite, right? Nobody

else in the country is doing that. And Carolina in that time period got to two national championship

games and of course one in 17. And so that's kind of the high of what North Carolina basketball has

been and what North Carolina basketball is about. That's probably above the expectation. I mean,

that's that's operating at a very efficient clip. But since then, there's no doubt the quality

of play has been diminished. I mean, look, North Carolina was number one seed in 2019 got knocked

out in sweet 16 by Bama or Auburn not here. 2020. Yes, there was not an insubi tournament,

but guess what? Carolina had already lost an ACC tournament. They were not getting up

bid. They were done. 2021. Carolina gets in in that eight nine game. 22, they get in as at eight seed,

right? 23. They don't make it. 24 really good year number one seed. And then last year,

they will last team to get into the tournament. This year, they're they're looking at probably

our five or six seed to better know how this weekend goes. I don't think there's any question

that the level of play since that 2019 season has diminished. To your question, how does that

correlate with the program expectations and the standard? There's a gap there between what we've

seen and what that standard has been. And I think that's the great question for the administration to

have to answer. What does the standard look like in this new modern era of college basketball?

That's what they have to decide. And I think it's interesting that there are some people who are

hard and fast that standard does not change whatsoever. This is who we've been for 60 years.

This is who we remain. Other people will say, hey, everything's changed. This is different now.

We've got to adjust. We've got to continue to make changes. But it's not reasonable to expect

Carolina to be number one seed three times out of four years. I don't know which one's right.

I think that's what the administration has to determine. And they have to map out moving forward.

It's a difficult conversation. But there's a long history from Dean Smith,

Taurori Williams, that shows that this is what Carolina basketball has been about.

What does that mean for the next 10 years? And that's the conversation that undoubtedly has been

going on. And they've got to get an answer to that. Because once you come up with that answer,

then everything else falls into place. In terms of how you want to move forward with

supporting the program, how you want to handle any potential coaching decisions I have to be made.

But you have to make that determination first. Is this and will it continue to be a top 10 program

nationally? If the answer is yes, the Carolina has not been playing to that standard since that 2019

season. Sounds like a next level. It sounds like a very deep next level that we can talk

about. Because I have a meeting questions for you. I mean, you have your finger on the

pulse of it. And of course, Carolina fans everywhere, whether you're an alum or whether you're

a fan and have been a fan for all your life and didn't go to school there. People care.

And people who quite frankly are fired up about it. And yeah, new era, new arena, all this kind

of stuff goes into everything. But we started out. Does the ACC tournament matter? And now we're

talking about the standard and the expectation of Carolina basketball. It sort of shows where we are

folks. Greg, I'm going to get out of here. We will be back to discuss this again, the standard and

the expectation. And Carolina's ability or want to, I think that's the key. The want to to get

into it, to get back to it. Shout out to Johnny T shirt. Johnny T shirt. com. Shout out to Greg Barnes.

As always, I'm trying to actually spend inside Carolina daily for more to 10th. Thanks, Greg.

Thanks, Tommy. Bringing your business dreams to life takes heart and about a thousand decisions

a day. That's why Atlantic Union Bank's knowledgeable bankers are here for you with the right guidance

and customized solutions to help you reach your business goals. So whether you're planning your

next move, upgrading your space or scaling to meet demand, we make sure your business is ready

for what's ahead. Because we are big enough to support you, yet small enough to know you.

Atlantic Union Bank. Anyway, you bank.

Edible Arrangeous Effortless Joy All Year. With same day in next day delivery or local pickup,

Edible makes gifting simple. Choose fresh arrangements, dessert boards and baked treats that arrive

ready to gift. Perfect for birthdays, thank yous, anniversaries or just because moments. Let Edible

arrange the details so you can focus on celebrating the people who matter. Order online at edible.com

or visit your local store to learn more. We've been the trusted experts since 1960 because nobody

knows tires better than we do and with over 90 tire brands, we have an abundance of options in

stock for your vehicle. Buy and drive today at discounttire.com. Let's get you taking care of.