ACC Basketball Tournament would be better with fewer teams

The ACC has put a bow on their annual basketball tournament – one that continues to be watered down by having every team participating in it.

Late into the night in an arena in Brooklyn, New York, the ACC crowned a conference champion for its annual basketball tournament for the 65th straight season – continuing the tradition of being the only conference in college basketball that says its tournament champion is the official title holder for the whole league.

That distinction, which is actually in the by laws of the ACC that all 15 members – including the Florida State Seminoles – must abide by, means that the annual affair in the beginning of March must mean more and count as something bigger and better.

What is not bigger and better is allowing teams like Pittsburgh in 2018, Boston College in the two preceding years and Virginia Tech the two years before that into the postseason tournament – teams with two or fewer wins in conference play each season since the ACC expanded to 15 teams for the 2013-14 season (with Pitt in 2018 and BC in 2016 going winless).

It isn’t just the Panthers, Eagles and Hokies during that span I’m talking about. The problem is that with having all 15 teams from the ACC participating, you have some watered down basketball that fans don’t want to see and isn’t a good look for the conference. The solution is pretty simple: reduce the number of teams that get to play in the postseason tournament.

For me, an ideal number would be just 10 teams as you would have the top two thirds of the conference as well as the teams who are in NCAA tournament contention be able to fight it out and perfect their March Madness chances. It would cut the number of games down from 14 to nine each tournament, so that much loss in revenue would never fly for the powers of the ACC.

So, a nice compromise would be reducing the tournament down to the top 12 teams, which would mean you have 11 total games played in the tournament over a four day period. Doing so over the past five tournaments since the expansion would have meant just three teams over that span played in the ACC tournament – translation: better basketball all around.

Since that expansion, just five teams ranked lower than the No. 8 seed have made it to the quarterfinal round (twice being a No. 9 seed FSU basketball team in both 2014 and 2015 and two teams doing it in this year’s tournament) – once again showing you already have chalk almost every time with teams advancing, so why waste everyone’s time?

Next: ACC Basketball Tournament done with New York City mistake

In reality, I know that it’s never going to happened since the ACC loves their money and claims that the three first round games bring it in (wouldn’t know it by seeing those Barclays Center crowds this year). Still, if the conference was serious about wanting to show that they care about being the best basketball conference out there, it would be time to start realizing that less is more.