Luke DeCock

As tournament returns to New York, ‘Brooklyn helped the ACC become what it is today’

By Luke DeCock

Updated March 7, 2022 3:28 PM

North Carolina State’s Lorenzo Charles (43) dunks the ball in the basket to give N.C. State a 54-52 win over Houston in the NCAA Championship game in Albuquerque, N.M., Monday, April 4, 1983. AP PHOTO

There’s no secret about the role that New York City has played in the birth, growth and glory days of ACC basketball, most famously Frank McGuire’s city-centric North Carolina teams and on to everyone from Kenny Anderson to Julius Hodge.

But as the ACC heads back to Brooklyn for a third time, that borough alone has its own specific role in ACC history, with some of the best players ever to come out of Brooklyn gravitating toward schools to the south — Albert King and Sam Perkins, Billy Cunningham and Lorenzo Charles, Charlie Davis and Stephon Marbury.

Larry Brown and Michael Jordan were born there and Brooklyn’s special connection with the ACC lives on, still.

“The thing they have in common to me is basketball is a religion in Brooklyn, just like North Carolina and the ACC,” said Pete Gillen, whose voice never left any doubts about his Brooklyn roots when he coached at Virginia. “It’s everything. There’s not a lot of baseball fields, not many in good shape anyway, but in Brooklyn there are playgrounds and different courts all over.

“People naturally love the sport. It’s ingrained in the DNA of the place, just like ACC basketball. People love the sport, they respect it, and the best players have wanted to play in the ACC.”

And while the future of the ACC tournament remains an open debate, count Gillen in the group that thinks Brooklyn should remain in the rotation.

“I think it’s great that they move it around,” Gillen said. “When I was at Virginia for seven years, it was usually in North Carolina, which is OK. I know the tradition there. It’s a slight advantage for the schools in the Triangle so it’s great to move it around, but it should be in NC a lot. But there’s also the heritage in Brooklyn. Brooklyn helped the ACC become what it is today.”