University of Virginia Library

ACC Tourney; Unsafe At
Any Speed

Sports Analysis

By Mike DeCamps

One of the Atlantic Coast
Conference's most outdated rules
will most certainly be questioned
by many this week in the aftermath
of perhaps the most tense and
ironical struggle in the Conference's
history for that coveted price
known as ACC basketball championship.

That rule as many already know
states that the winner of the
Conference's annual three day
tournament goes on to the NCAA
Eastern Regionals. The regular
season champions, if they are not
the same as the tourney winners,
only get a crying towel.

This year South Carolina gets
that crying towel, and there were
plenty to go around. The ironic
events don't ever need reviewing.
The Gamecocks waltzed through
the regular season winning every
conference game to become only
the third team in the history of the
conference to do so.

In addition South Carolina defeated
North Carolina State twice
in regular season, one game being
just short of a runaway and the
second being not nearly as close as
the two point final margin indicated.

But the Gamecocks coach,
Frank McGuire was dead right
about the conference tournament.
"It's like Russian roulette. You
throw away all the regular season
records."

North Carolina State did throw
away all the regular season records.
In addition they played their game
plan to perfection Saturday night.
When a hobbling John Roche
missed two chances to win the
game for the Gamecocks one in
regulation play and one in the first
overtime, the Wolfpack from
Raleigh seized at the opportunity
to win it themselves.

Now the irony of the whole
situation develops. While an ill fated
South Carolina team, that
clearly established in regular season
play that it was the conference
champion, sits out the NCAA
regionals, a determined North Carolina
State team awaits a matchup
with St. Bonaventure.

And where else would the ideal
site be for St. Bonaventure-State
game than at Columbia, South
Carolina? In all sincerity, it is about
time for the Conference to take a
long look at its annual three day get
together, an affair that gives every
team a third chance, a change that
State has converted two out of the
last three years.

It was three years ago when
State upset a favored Duke team
12-10 in a ridiculous slowdown in
the semifinals. Duke, with the same
fate of this year's South Carolina
squad found itself in the NIT that
year. Now State has outdone itself.

This week State should be
meeting South Carolina for a fourth
time, before the Eastern Regionals.
It's a regulation many conference's
are hesitant to put in effect due to
the wear and tear on the teams. But
still the regular season champ, if it
can't prove itself in one game,
should be given a second chance.
After all it spend fourteen regular
season games doing this and one
game blowing it all.