While a lackluster showing by ACC men's teams in this year's NCAA Tournament may have hurt the league's basketball prestige, the financial pain may be felt for the next six years.

Under the NCAA's basketball revenue distribution plan, a conference's annual share is based on the number of teams in the NCAA Tournament and how successful those league's teams are on the court over a six-year period. With a record seven teams awarded berths this year, the ACC was positioned for a nice windfall.

But Duke and Georgia Tech lost in the opening round. Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland and Boston College fell in the second round. North Carolina won three games to reach the regional final, then frittered away an 11-point, second-half lead Sunday against Georgetown and lost.

For the second straight year, the ACC is without a team in the Final Four. In NCAA financial parlance, that means more "units" lost for the league.

Units are determined by adding the number of teams and wins each year in the tournament. The ACC's seven teams had seven victories this year, thus 14 units.

The NCAA bases its annual distributions to conferences on total units earned in a six-year period. The 2007 distribution is based on the years from 2001 through 2006, when the ACC accumulated 80 units. With each unit worth $176,864 this year, the ACC should receive $14,149,120 for 2007, according to NCAA projections.

However, the value of the units has been rising each year -- a unit was worth $163,981 last year -- and that could offset some of the ACC's financial hit.

Next year, the league will have 79 units -- losing 15 units from 2001, adding 14 from this year. That's far short of the 19 units the league earned in 2004, when the ACC had six teams in the field and Duke and Georgia Tech reached the Final Four.

UNC athletics director Dick Baddour said he doesn't worry about units being earned or lost by ACC teams during the playing of the NCAA Tournament.

"I guess somewhere in the back of your mind you think about it but it's not something I focus on," he said. "It's not something you take for granted. But because of the strength of the league and the fact it's determined over a six-year period, it's a predictable total and doesn't vary much from one year to the next."

Lee Fowler, the athletics director at N.C. State, said, "You go into the tournament knowing every win is good for the conference and that the better we do, the better it is for the conference. We did know with seven teams in this year, we had an advantage on a lot of leagues. Still, 14 units is not a bad year."

The Wolfpack men's team missed the NCAA Tournament this season after five straight appearances, but that doesn't affect NCSU's revenue share from the league.

Diane Moose, NCSU's associate athletics director for business operations, said the Pack would receive about $1.1 million as would the other ACC schools except Boston College, which receives a partial share this year as a new member. Boston College gets a full share next year, so the NCAA revenue will be distributed equally among the ACC teams.

N.C. State has a total athletics budget of about $38 million, and UNC's is $51 million.