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The Atlantic Coast Conference has been lackluster at best for most of the last five men’s basketball seasons. The league has not earned more than five NCAA Tournament bids since 2021 and has not produced more than two top-four seeds since 2019. For a conference that built its reputation on March dominance, that is a long slide.
This season feels different. With several new coaches and seemingly revived programs, the ACC entered 2025–26 with the expectation that it would finally look like a power league again. Two months in, the evidence says it has delivered.
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ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips quietly made one of the most important decisions of the offseason when he returned to an 18-game conference schedule for the first time since 2018–19. That change freed teams to schedule more marquee non-conference games. The gamble was simple: trade a few extra league games for more chances to beat quality opponents and grow the ACC’s reputation with the committee.
So far, it has worked.
Last season, ACC teams went just 17–51 against power-conference (B10, B12, SEC, & Big East) opponents across the non-conference schedule. Quadrant 1 games were a nightmare: a combined 10–50 record. Only six teams finished inside the NET top 75. The ACC could point to Duke, who would go onto be a No.1 seed and Final Four team, but the overall conference profile was lacking.
This year’s numbers tell a different story.
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Across the 2025–26 non-conference slate, ACC teams are 38–39 against P5 opponents, essentially playing even with the rest of the power structure. In Quadrant 1 games, the league is 16–31, still below water, but far more respectable. There are four teams in the top 30 of the NET compared to three last season. There are seven ACC squads ranked from 31-75, up from four last year.
That is 11 teams in the top 75 (up from six in 2024-25), almost three quarters of the league, with Stanford just missing the cut at No.76.
It’s no…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/uva-basketball-center-acc-2025-191724960.html
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Publish date : 2025-12-23 19:17:00
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