History surrounds NC State, UNC in what’s been a throwback start for the ACC’s Big Four
Let ‘em complain, from Syracuse to South Bend, from Chestnut Hill to Coral Gables, about the parochialism of the old-school ACC. Let ‘em complain all they want. The standings speak louder.
It’s the second week of January and the Big Four is on top of the ACC world.
As it once was.
As it should be?
First place in the ACC will be at least partially, and possibly fully, decided by the first big rivalry game of the season, North Carolina’s visit to N.C. State on Wednesday, under circumstances that haven’t been seen in 50 years.
To begin this week, before Duke and Wake Forest’s games Tuesday night, North Carolina, N.C. State and Wake Forest were tied atop the standings at 3-0. Duke was right behind in a three-way tie for fourth at 2-1. That makes this State-Carolina game at PNC Arena only the third-ever meeting with both teams at least 3-0 in the conference and the first since 1974.
N.C. State is 3-0 for the first time since 2013 after Saturday’s thumping of Virginia; it hasn’t opened 4-0 since that 1974 season. North Carolina is 3-0 for the first time since 2016, when the Tar Heels started 8-0 on their way to the national-title game, and ranked seventh in the AP poll after Saturday’s big win at Clemson.
Those are throwback numbers for what’s started out like a throwback season.
Not that anyone on the court Wednesday night will be worried about it.
“These guys, believe it or not, don’t know stats like we do,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said. “They don’t follow it as much as we do. All they’re looking at is we won our last game. The one thing I’ve been able to do with this group is focus in on who we’re playing next and obviously the next opponent is Carolina, but we won’t talk about, hey, you’ve won this many games and haven’t done that since when.”
To be fair, that early conference success doesn’t necessarily resonate the way it did five decades ago, in part because only North Carolina and Duke are considered among the nation’s elite this season, with Wake Forest on the fringe and N.C. State slightly behind. Going into Duke’s game at Pittsburgh on Tuesday and Wake Forest’s game at Florida State, UNC was eighth in Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency rankings, Duke was 11th, Wake Forest was 42nd and N.C. State was 64th.
It’s been 19 years since all four made the NCAA tournament, something that has only happened three times since the tournament expanded to 64 (now 68) teams. It’s not out of the realm of possibility it could happen again if the Wolfpack and Demon Deacons finish strong, but at the moment it’s about a 1-in-15 shot.
All four are unquestionably in the conversation, though, and that’s good news for the ACC. With apologies to Virginia and Georgia Tech in particular, both essential to the basketball history of the original ACC — and there was once a third school in that conversation, especially when it comes to discussions of 1974 — the intrastate rivalries among those four schools has always been the engine driving ACC basketball, the great machine churning away at the heart of it.
You can certainly add to that, and Louisville and Syracuse and Miami and Notre Dame and Virginia Tech have all had their moments since joining the league, even if two of those are dragging the league down at the moment. Still, no matter how much the others grumble about it, the Big Four still do more to move the needle than anyone else.
It’s not the only thing that made the ACC the ACC, but it’s still the biggest thing.
At a time when the ACC continues to morph into something completely different — and that’s not a complaint, that’s just the way of the world — this basketball season so far has been a fun little remembrance of times past. Fifty years past, in the case of North Carolina and N.C. State.
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This story was originally published January 9, 2024 at 1:00 PM.
