By Brian Murphy, WRAL

The ACC begins men’s basketball conference play this weekend with all 18 teams facing off against a league foe. It should be a bonanza of basketball for a conference that’s long prided itself on basketball excellence.

Instead, three months before the NCAA Tournament starts, it feels like the league is already a dead man walking. Headed toward even fewer tournament bids than in the last three years and less national recognition after a dismal non-conference showing.

No doubt No. 9 Duke — loaded with talent and defensive chops — could reach the Final Four and, perhaps, even cut down the nets with Cooper Flagg and company. Clemson and/or Pittsburgh might surprise. Maybe UNC figures things out, but given its lack of size, there is a ceiling on the Tar Heels.

But the ACC has already played itself into trouble for coveted at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. The league lost the ACC-SEC Challenge 14-2. The league is 3-26 against members of the SEC this season. It is below .500 against the Big 12 and the Big East.

ACC teams have already racked up 54 losses, including to Dartmouth and Cal Poly and Jacksonville and Elon.

The league received five bids in each of the last three tournaments, such a small number that Commissioner Jim Phillips launched an “extensive statistical analysis,” created working groups and hired consultants to solve the problem. The league pointed to the success of teams in the tournament — four Final Four appearances in the last three years by four different programs — as evidence that it deserved more at-large bids.

Whatever credence that argument had and whatever sympathy the league had generated vanished this week with the dismal showing against the SEC, a football league that’s become a men’s basketball powerhouse.

The ACC went 1-9 on the first day of the challenge. It went 1-5 on the second day. Clemson knocked off No. 4 Kentucky at home and Duke beat No. 2 Auburn at home — great resume-building victory. The ACC lost three games by five points or less. Every other game was decided by 10 points or more.

In other words, it wasn’t even close.

And it wasn’t a fluke. The SEC was 12-1 against the ACC entering the challenge.

The league has a smattering of non-conference games left, but the bulk of the schedule is intra-conference at this point. The ACC’s record is what it is — and it will be used against it throughout February and March.

“I hope we have a great November and December where they can no longer use your non-conference against you,” NC State coach Kevin Keatts said in October. “That’s been one of the biggest issues is our non-conference, according to the talking heads, hasn’t been great.”

Somehow it got even worse.

ACC games this weekend

Saturday

Clemson at Miami, noon (ESPN2)
Syracuse at Notre Dame, noon (CW)
Boston College at Wake Forest, noon (ACCN)
Georgia Tech at UNC, 2 p.m. (ACCN)
Pittsburgh at Virginia Tech, 2 p.m. (ESPNU)
Virginia at SMU, 2:15 p.m. (CW)
Stanford at Cal, 4 p.m. (ACCN)
Florida State at NC State, 4 p.m. (ESPNU)

Sunday

Duke at Louisville, 6 p.m. (ACCN)

Source: wralsportsfan.com