A Ship Lost at Sea: ACC mid-season report.

Deny thy Commissioner and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Blogger.

Tis but thy losses that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a crummy league.

What's crummy league? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to college basketball. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So ACC would, were he not ACC call'd,

Retain that dear perfection which it owes

Without that title. ACC, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.

Wait seriously, ACC, where are you?

With bated breath, we here at LCB watched the beginnings of the fledgling ACC schedule with great expectations. For all we could tell, the out-of-conference tom-foolery and skullduggery was exactly that; upsets and upsetting early losses would be of no consequence come conference play. The rightful order and suprememcy of ACC teams would again come flying out of the ashes of early season missteps and the power players in the league would come out swinging.

Oops. Not exactly happening is it? UNC, taking by far the biggest fall of any team in the league, is now an 8 loss team and no longer in the top-25. This team is so stacked with young talent, it practically oozes upside, but the McD's AAs haven't gelled and consequently the Heels have suffered. Things are not quite so baby blue anymore on Franklin street.

Then lets focus on their 15-501 rival: Duke. Considered the league favorite, Duke can't buy a win on the road. They've lost to NC State and GA Tech, which are not in-and-of-themselves bad losses, but more a telling sign of the great fragility of Duke's offensive abilities in rowdy arenas. All of that aside, Duke has looked like a strong ACC team of old. That is, until this past weekend. Playing at Georgetown in a top 10 ACC/Big East showdown, Duke got thump, run out of the gym and deflated to the point that televisions around Durham began flickering off with more than 10 minutes to go in the second half. Before the game, certain analysts had been touting Duke as the savior of the ACC, that a big win over Georgetown would raise the rest of the ACC out of the dark hole into which it had plunged so quickly.

Oops. That didn't happen either. Duke lost big, getting stomped in the process. But how about the supposed dark horses in the league? Virginia, NC State, Maryland? Surprise of surprises, if there was ever a year that scrappy veteran teams could make a play for an ACC title it would a year like this, when the rest of the league cannot seem to tie their shoes correctly without picking of a foul or getting injured.

Maryland, per the usual Gary Williams magic, has jumped out to lead the league in conference wins and has looked like the big kid on the block. But sadly, in this year's ACC, the big kid is a 98 pound weakling, visciously pounding its fists into other 98-97-96 pound weaklings around it. Sounds like College Park doesn't it?

Virginia, on the other hand, was considered to be the weakest of the bunch, a virtual speed bump come ACC play. But despite LCB's pre-season prediction that Virginia would be terrible, they haven't been. In fact it's been just the opposite, they've been prowling the eastern seaboard like a ravanous wolf, tearing into the flesh of already haggard UNC, NC State, and Georgia Tech squads. Be on alert basketball fans, UVA continues to lurk around corners, waiting for their next surprise victim to come stumbling up the block.

Now, you may presume that I am only speaking to the woes of the "power programs" and inferring that they are the woes of the conference in turn. Perhaps I am regarding the newly found parity in the ACC with a sneering sense of elitism. But this isn't my point. Congrats to UVA, NC State, and Maryland for exceeding expectations. But the real issue that concerns me the most is that the prestige of the ACC is slipping this season. The Big East, Big Ten, and Big 12 are all more talent laden conferences full of dangerous teams. And not surprisingly, the ACC's performance against them this season is scary. Duke, the supposed leader of the conference, got slammed by Georgetown, a good, but not fantastic Big East team on Saturday. UNC has now lost to College of Charleston, Texas, and Syracuse. Oh and remember the surprising Maryland squad? They've now been squarely beaten by Villanova, Cinncinati, Wisconsin, and William & Mary.

In conclusion, I'm going to do something I don't often do; I'm going to quote Roy Williams in a non-sardonic manner:

"How can you go any lower? Be honest: How can it be any worse than it is right now?"

Very true, Roy, Dag-snake-it and dog-gone-gummit, you're right. I'm not sure it could be much worse, short of Boston College going on a monster run and winning the conference tournament, I don't think the ACC could sink any lower. The ACC of old, gleaming with the pride of powerful teams, it's sails full of tournament bound winds, now lays in disrepair, in a foggy haze where not so much as a breeze comes flittering past. I for one hope the crews of the respective vessels can find the NCAA waters before the sharp rocks of the offseason come crashing into the hull, but only time will tell.