From his seat in a banquet room at the Ritz-Carlton in uptown Charlotte, N.C., Jim Boeheim spoke into 16 digital recorders fanned out on the table in front of him.
All dozen chairs circling the table were taken, so reporters gathered two rows deep to greet one of the three new coaches at the ACC’s annual basketball media day.
The orange “S” for Syracuse on his jacket was mere formality for a Naismith Hall of Fame coach playing the role of new kid on the block in the newly expanded mega-conference.
Boeheim’s navy-blue jacket read more windbreaker than the latest Nike active wear, and his thinning hair was a bit untidy. He looked more coach than slick college recruiter, and he sounded that way, too.
“Because you play zone doesn’t mean you can’t guard shooters,” Boeheim preached to a choir of about 30 media. “That’s a myth, a complete myth.”
The ACC is getting an injection of Boeheim’s patented 2-3 zone and intrigue. With Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame (in non-football sports) joining and defending national champion Louisville and coach Rick Pitino on the way in 2014, this isn’t just about who might challenge Duke and North Carolina this season. Though, Syracuse would be a good place to start.
“Who is that back there?” said a 60-something man, leaning into the pack of reporters around Boeheim. “He looks like Jim Larranaga.”
He should know. He was Jim Larranaga, coach of defending ACC champion Miami.
Two years ago, Larranaga was the new coach at the hot table. The former George Mason coach of 2006 Final Four fame took over at Miami, looking to boost the basketball resume of one of the ACC’s recent football-rich additions.
But the ACC isn’t just fertile ground for coaches with mid-major pedigrees anymore. This is the elite of the basketball elite. Syracuse, Notre Dame and Pitt just left the Big East, which had 11 teams in the NCAA tournament three years ago.
“It’s really not a difficult transition because the old Big East was not there,” said Boeheim, referring to upheaval that saw seven Catholic schools leave the Big East, including Syracuse’s rival Georgetown. “There are seven teams in this league that played in the Big East. And there weren’t seven teams in the Big East that were in it in the beginning….
“There’s a certain degree of nostalgia in that league because that’s where we were for 34 years,” Boeheim continued. “But this is a better league.”
It is now. Syracuse, a Final Four team in March, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh all made the NCAA tournament last season, and all three were picked to finish in the top six of the ACC at last week’s Operation Basketball media day.
Duke and North Carolina are two of the winningest programs in college basketball, but they haven’t had much company in the game’s elite for 10-15 years. The closest thing has been Maryland, which will leave for the Big Ten in July. (The ACC reached a Grant of Rights agreement to assure there won’t be more Maryland-like departures anytime soon.)
“I think we’re going to see much more than Duke and Carolina showcased in this league, with all these new additions,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “In some ways, I think that may have held the league back … because you had this golden goose of Duke and Carolina. And now we don’t have just one goose, man.”
Rivalries in expansion of football-dominated conferences might be more affected by geography. Krzyzewski points out in the new version of the ACC, they’re already there.
“We won’t have to take any time to develop to a Duke-Syracuse, Notre Dame,” Krzyzewski said. “And not just us. It’ll be instant rivalries. That’s where I think our conference for basketball is way ahead of anybody.”
Boeheim said Syracuse’s season-ticket sales are the highest in 20 years, about 20,000. The Duke-Syracuse game Feb. 1 at the Carrier Dome is sold out.
Natural rivalries? Krzyzewski will coach against his longtime Duke assistant Mike Brey, who’s in his 14th season as head coach at Notre Dame. Guard Jerian Grant and Notre Dame will host Clemson, the school where his brother Jerai played and father Harvey and uncle Horace Grant starred.
Grant’s backcourt mate Eric Atkins can tell you the Fighting Irish play at Maryland on Jan. 15, because Atkins grew up in Columbia, Md. He grew up playing on the same Washington-based AAU team as Duke guards Quinn Cook and Tyler Thornton.
“I always loved the ACC,” Atkins said. “I was watching those Duke-Maryland games. I was right there.”
Okaro White, Florida State’s 6-8 senior forward from Clearwater, Fla., lived in New York until he was 12, a fan of Syracuse and Carmelo Anthony. FSU will host the Orange on March 9, which is good news for Syracuse center Baye Moussa Keita, a native of Senegal, the West African nation with a tropical climate. He doesn’t mind avoiding some upstate New York snow.
“We’re going to play Miami and Florida State when it’s a cold winter up there,” Keita said.
Duke forward Rodney Hood, a transfer from Mississippi State, grew up in Meridian, Miss., the heart of SEC country, an Alabama football fan. He was the perfect person to ask if he thinks ACC basketball will compare to SEC football now.
“Nah, I don’t think so,” Hood said. “Just being honest. When you produce a national championship after national championship, it’s hard to compete with that. But I hope so. I hope it’s competitive in the years to come. (The ACC) is a very tradition-rich conference, and it’s just great for our sport.”
In a sport where national champions comes from a field of 68 teams through a six-round gauntlet, odds are against one conference producing a string of national champions. But the ACC can expect to see its yearly invite totals rise.
Only four ACC teams made the NCAA tournament last season. The ACC hasn’t led all conferences since seven teams went in 2007. But redrawing the lines gives the ACC Big East potential in the NCAA field, if you ask Brey. Notre Dame was one of the 11 teams to get in from a 16-team Big East in 2011.
“If you can get up in the morning in September and say ‘If I finish in the top eight or nine in my league, you mean I’m getting a bid?’” Brey said. “That keeps your sanity.”
While an assistant at Duke, Brey coached against the late Jim Valvano at N.C. State. Brey applied Valvano’s old “7-7, go to heaven” theory at Notre Dame. A .500 conference record in the golden age of ACC basketball was good enough.
“If you’re 9-9 with some quality wins you’re being discussed,” Brey said of his time in the Big East. “I think that’s what’s going to happen in this league, and I think it’s going to happen this year.”
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