Why the ACC women’s tournament in Greensboro is a throwback to men’s tournaments past
Energized crowds and ranked teams gather at the Greensboro Coliseum now that March is here.
Yes, it’s ACC tournament time, but this had nothing to do with the league’s men’s teams.
The ACC women’s tournament represents the highest level of its sport nationally, with nine teams projected to make the NCAA tournament, including four teams ranked in the top 25, with two among the top 10.
Those are big reasons why the women’s tournament, which has become a fixture in Greensboro over the past two decades, has become what the ACC men’s tournament used to be.
“I think that, in some ways, the tournament being in Greensboro still feels very old-school ACC,” said ESPN/ACC Network analyst Kelly Gramlich, a former Clemson player. “Even though you’ve got teams like Notre Dame and Louisville that have won it. But it still feels like a true collegiate basketball tournament instead of playing it in these massive arenas and playing it in these massive cities. It means so much to Greensboro, and I think it reflects in the product.”
With the contract to hold the event in Greensboro up after this week’s tournament, some uncertainty exists about the future. Moving it out of Greensboro would break with a deep tradition. ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said decisions on future men’s and women’s tournaments will come this spring.
“We’re working on it,” Phillips said before the tournament started this past week. “But Tournament Town has been fabulous for women’s basketball.”
Rise of ACC women’s basketball
While the men’s tournament moved up and down the East Coast over the past 10 years, setting up shop in New York, Washington, D.C. and Charlotte, in addition to stops in Greensboro, the women consider Greensboro their home. The league first moved the event there at the turn of the century.
This week marked the 23rd time in the past 24 years the Greensboro Coliseum has housed the ACC women’s tournament. The lone exception was Conway, S.C., hosting in 2017 when the league moved events out of North Carolina due to the state’s controversial and since-changed HB2 law.
That run is reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s, when Greensboro hosted 11 of the 14 men’s tournaments from 1971-84.
That was also a time when ACC men’s basketball was the nation’s best. North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State and Virginia — half the league’s membership then — all made Final Four appearances during those 14 years, with N.C. State winning two national championships and UNC one.
These days, the ACC women’s programs approach that level of play. An ACC team has made the Final Four in six of the last eight NCAA women’s tournaments. Notre Dame, Louisville and Syracuse have all made it, with the Irish winning the 2018 national championship.
This season, with nine teams projected by ESPN’s Charlie Creme to make the NCAA tournament, the ACC brought depth and unpredictability to Greensboro.
“I think what we have is, there was a time in the women’s game where we’d have one or two household names in the league,” said ESPN’s Debbie Antonelli, who played basketball at Cary High School and N.C. State. “And now I think we have eight or 10. You have more names that people recognize and have watched all season.”
Parity seeps in
Notre Dame won five of the first six ACC tournaments once it entered the league for the 2013-14 season. Louisville beat Notre Dame in the 2018 tournament final before both teams made the Final Four. N.C. State won the past three ACC championships.
“I think in years past, you could have said, `Okay, it’s March Madness. Anything can happen,’” Gramlich said. “But it simply wasn’t true. Generally it was probably one of the top two or three teams a lot of years. It was a Notre Dame or Louisville or NC State kind of thing.”
Not this year.
This season, Duke, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, N.C. State and North Carolina all spent at least one week in the top 10 of the Associated Press national poll.
Duke returned to the top of the conference after having not been among the top two seeds since 2013. The Blue Devils narrowly missed earning the top seed, having been upset at home by UNC, 45-41, last Sunday. So Notre Dame won the regular season and the Blue Devils were seeded No. 2 for the ACC tournament.
The four teams that entered this week’s ACC tournament also ranked in the AP Top 25 women’s basketball poll were No. 8 Virginia Tech, No. 10 Notre Dame, No. 13 Duke and No. 18 UNC.
The seeds were such that second-seeded Duke and No. 7 seed UNC were on a collision course to meet in the tournament quarterfinals. Given that the teams played before a sold-out, bipartisan crowd of 9,314 at Cameron Indoor Stadium last Sunday, there was the possibility, if not probability, of an electric atmosphere in Greensboro.
Count Duke coach Kara Lawson, who took over the Blue Devils’ program in July 2020, as one person who likes having Duke, UNC and N.C. State all field strong women’s basketball programs, who understands what that means to the state and, by extension, the ACC tournament.
“How could it be a bad thing that everybody’s playing at a high level around here?” Lawson said. “I can’t say how much about history in this area. I’ve only lived here for two and a half years. But I know that all these programs have great history in women’s basketball, have to Final Fours and have won ACC titles. So if if everybody is hitting on all cylinders. I think all three of these schools are hard to beat.”
Having those games in Greensboro makes for quite an atmosphere.
“Traditionally, Tobacco Road has been so good in the women’s game,” Antonelli said. “Greensboro seemed like a natural place for fans. It’s easy for a Duke, Carolina and State to get there. When those teams are good, then the tournament is exceptional, right? Because there’s more blue and red and blue in the building.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2023 at 6:00 AM.