Around the Web: New ACC Tournament Format

StateFansNation.com has a nice little article about the changes to the ACC Tournament format. The new rules slipped by us and may have slipped by you this season. So thanks SFN for pointing this out before everyone starts going nuts and trying to figure out how the seeding works. Here is an excerpt:

The 15/16 team conference tournament format basically takes the concept of the LRI to the next level.  (There’s an acronym that google won’t help you with.)

–   On Wednesday, the bottom six teams play to determine who is going to move into 12 team format that the ACC has used for the last several years.

– On Thursday, seeds 5 thru 7 play the Wednesday winners along with the 8-9 game.

– Seeds 1-4 get byes to the first two rounds and play on Friday (just like the 12-team format).   Semis on Saturday and finals on Sunday finish up the ACCT a couple of hours before the Sunday evening NCAAT Selection Show on CBS.

ANALYSIS

The ACC/BE tournament format is not one that I would have chosen, but I’m finding it hard to get too worked up about it.

–        This format does reward teams for finishing in the first four slots, but is that really needed?

–        The format isn’t really fair to the bottom six teams, but does it really matter?   How far do you expect the bottom third+ of the conference to go anyway?

–        The 64+ team NCAAT has essentially killed the drama from the old ACCT.   The ACCT basically just boils down to the last chance for the bubble teams to get a big upset or someone looking for a #1 seed in the NCAAT.   (You can be sure that Boeheim cares about the ACCT this year because he never wanted to move to the ACC and he’ll want to make a point.)

Bottom line…it is what it is.   We can’t change it and it doesn’t totally suck.   The biggest “issue” is going to come when teams tie for the 4th and 9th seeds….especially if the loser of the tie-breaker actually played a tougher conference schedule.    But once again, it is what it is and I’m content with letting the print media or someone here break down the tie-breaker rules and various possibilities as the regular season comes to a close.

The more interesting analysis is what does the new format mean for the bubble teams?

To read the full article, click here…