ACC on losing end of SEC challenge, but winning where it matters (for a change)

Unlike last year, it wasn’t a total disaster.

That’s not the best you can say about this year’s ACC-SEC Challenge — there were some promising performances that bode well for the ACC down the road — but after the way things went a year ago, progress was easy to find.

The ACC lost, again, going 7-9 after a good start on Tuesday degenerated into a disappointing Wednesday, although that was not unexpected. The second day was a much tougher slate of games for the ACC, and in at least one case (Clemson), a losing team actually exceeded expectations.

After last year’s 2-14 that set both the narrative and the metrics dead against the ACC, leading to another paltry representation in the NCAA tournament, at the very least the ACC did no harm this time around. If anything, the way Virginia and Syracuse and Miami and North Carolina played in particular suggests there are far more teams worthy of consideration at this point than a year ago.

A couple lemons dragged down the whole bunch — Wake Forest getting absolutely tonked at home by Oklahoma as a favorite and Florida State collapsing against Georgia — but the overall impression was of a competitive league that more than held its own. Which is, obviously, far different from a year ago.

Duke held on against Florida and North Carolina won at Kentucky for the first time in almost a generation, making a statement at the top. But it was the middle where the ACC made the most progress: Syracuse upset Tennessee for another Dome-storming, Miami looked good against Mississippi and Virginia whopped Texas in Austin, all big wins for the ACC, and by teams that may need those wins come Selection Sunday.

(How about Syracuse putting together a resume? Who saw that coming?)

The Wednesday schedule didn’t play into the ACC’s favor with Louisville, N.C. State and SMU all going on the road against ranked teams, but those aren’t losses that will hurt the ACC when it comes to tournament consideration, just missed opportunities to pick up positive data points.

At this point, having avoided another SEC catastrophe, the ACC can project at least seven and maybe even nine teams in the NCAA field. The ACC hasn’t gotten seven teams in since 2021 and hasn’t had more than that since 2018, when it had nine, something that used to be almost routine.

Overall, things are looking up, even if not to traditional standards, and the improvement against the SEC reflects that. The new coaches at Miami and N.C. State and Virginia have had the desired effect, and a year after all three were among the seven ACC teams to finish the season outside of the KenPom top 100, the ACC only has three in triple digits so far this season.

It’s too early to start looking at this, but for what it’s worth, the ACC’s nine NCAA tournament contenders — sorry, Wake Forest — are a combined 9-12 in Quadrant 1 games. A better metric, given the way the NET is prone to early season fluctuations, would be KenPom “A” games, and the ACC’s nine candidates are a respectable 11-11 in those.

The risk, as always, is the bubble teams losing to the ACC’s anchors, and there are still a few of those. Woe to the team that loses to Boston College, Florida State, Georgia Tech or Pittsburgh, home or road.

There are still a few prime nonconference games remaining before ACC play begins in earnest — Duke at Michigan State, Louisville-Indiana in Indianapolis and SMU-Texas A&M outside Dallas this weekend alone — but so far the ACC has done what it needed to do in November and the first week of December.

And the ACC did what it needed to do the past two days, even if it ended up on the losing side.

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This story was originally published December 4, 2025 at 12:29 PM.

Luke DeCock

The News & Observer

Luke DeCock is a former journalist for the News & Observer.