That was close.
We’ve heard ACC men’s basketball is second-rate even before North Carolina, previously the top-rated team nationally, went into a protracted late-November funk, losing four straight, the first three to eventual NCAA entrants. Even when the ACC decisively captured the final Challenge series with the Big Ten, national talk remained discouraged and discouraging.
There was no ACC team that looked to be a national championship contender.
There was no ACC player who stood out as an All-American (Armando Bacot?) or as the obvious choice for the league’s Player of the Year. The anonymously selected award went to Miami guard Isaiah Wong, a solid performer but hardly a luminous presence.