Who’s the best ACC team, thus far?

Mike DeCorcio of the Sporting News, National College Basketball Writer, and a Hall of Famer at that, but he covers a lot of other things. So let me ask you this question. If I had to ask you right now, who the best team in the ACC was?

Who is it? The best team, oh boy. I would probably say Virginia. I think that question is not that hard to answer because they played really well and they have a good resume. They play a solid resume. I think they've been a three or a four seed for me.

I've been doing the bracket since the end of December, so they've been a three or four most of that time. So I would not think them to be necessarily the most dangerous team. But the team that has played the best so far this year, I would think they fit that category. So for me, there's three teams in that mix.

One of them is Virginia. I personally think it's Miami. But I am curious what you think of NC State at this point in the season. They have played a really tough schedule in the league and just got to five and three after starting 0-2. Yeah, I'm excited about what Kevin's been able to do there. Someone that I've known for a very long time and like a lot and so it's really cool to see them having a season that their fans have been kind of waiting for for a little while. And they played very well.

The win over Duke was terrific and to go to Virginia Tech and win. They've got some excellent victims on their resume now and obviously they've got opportunities coming up as well with trips to Carolina and Wake in the next three games. Look, I love their backcourt.

I haven't seen a ton. We haven't seen Reece Beekman play a lot for Virginia. They have not been 100% healthy. But we just saw Miami and I know how good Miami's backcourt is. Isaiah Wong is a dynamite, dynamite player. But I don't know if there's a better backcourt in the ACC than what NC State rolls out there. And I think one of the underrated things about them is just how good an all-around player Casey Morsell has become. Last year's version of Casey Morsell was a disappointment.

It's obviously an adjustment coming from Virginia here. But man, he was awesome last night in a lot of ways that aren't three-point shooting, which he's a good three-point shooter. I love Joiner and Smith as a backcourt. Yeah, they've done great. Let me see if I can say this properly. Turquavion, is that how he says it? Yes. Yes.

Awesome. Well, it's an awesome name and he has played terrifically. And I love when players go, I'm a big believer in go find out what the NBA wants and see how you fit into it. And if they say you're not ready, then instead of saying, yes, I am. And then finding out, no, you're not.

You go back and you get ready. And he's doing that. He's proving the NBA guy's right that it wasn't a pipe dream, but that he needed more time. And, you know, I was at the Combine last June and saw Kevin there and talked to him. And, you know, it's great that he is back at the state and playing so well, so well that maybe, maybe when the Sporting News mid-season All-American team is released tomorrow, maybe you might see that big name on there. I don't know.

Maybe. Speaking of big names, DJ Burns is a big human being. He is that he is so much fun to watch. They're also going to get a big, a big back. Do do some more church is coming back from an injury that I think a lot of people thought he was going to miss the rest of the year. He was a big player for them early. No, their game against Carolina on Saturday is is huge for a lot of reasons. I would argue it's maybe bigger even for Carolina who has really yet to look great against a good team. And I don't know if you're if you have any concerns about the Tar Heels or not, but I think it's a sneaky big game for UNC.

Oh, no, I totally agree with you. One of the there are a couple reasons why what you mentioned about them not playing great against the best opposition because even the Ohio State game at a point when Ohio State was playing very well, I mean, Ohio State should have won. They credit to to to Hubert for drawing up an outstanding inbound play. And the whole this whole sequence was beautifully designed inbound to midcourt call timeout inbound to the far post to put the Ohio State State defense in jeopardy.

And then the great turnaround by Pete Mann. Yeah, I mean, it was all beautiful, but they should that Ohio State shouldn't have allowed it to happen right way that they did and and made some mistakes down the stretch that gave the Tar Heels a chance. So then you look at, you know, they go to Pitt and they don't play great and they go Virginia. And of course, they have an excuse in that one, but it's all sitting there and they haven't played exceedingly well against great opposition. And so a lot of people are kind of waiting for them to show what they really have. And they don't want to go back into March in the same circumstance they were a year ago.

And they want to go back into March like the team that ended March. And so games like this one are really important because there are only so many of them. You obviously you have the two Duke games and you got to go to wake and you got Pitt coming back to you. And so there are some, but maybe not as many as are offered in some other leagues.

I mean, you got a lot of. So got a lot of Florida States and Syracuse and there's there's a fair of Notre Dame. There's a fair amount of that on the schedule. I saw the first score I saw for Florida State Notre Dame was twenty nine to eight. Florida State was leading Notre Dame. And I'm like, what happened to Notre Dame?

I realized they're bad. They're not Louisville bad, but there are four or five really bad basketball teams in the ACC this year, and it's going to drag some strength of schedules down. But I think the rest of the teams are fairly capable. It's a it's a very strange year. I don't think there's anybody ultimately that's going to be seated higher than four.

I really don't at the at the end. I don't think anybody's that good, but I think there could be a lot of teams seated between seven and eleven. If the Tar Heels were to tear down the stretch and Ken Palm has them not doing that, they he hasn't predicted for a twelve and eight finish in the league.

That's not going to get it done. That's going to get him in. But that's but I mean, if they if they tore down the stretch the way they tore through March last year, I could see them getting hot as high as a three.

Probably not that any higher than that. But I could see it getting to a three. But it's up to them. And I think the same with the Blue Devils. They have that ability if they were to put it together.

It's not get it's not together now. No, those are the two teams that could get reasonably high that aren't already there. Like Virginia is the rest, I think, are competing to be somewhere in the six to nine range, high end six, low end nine.

I get yelled at every week. How can the ACC have so many teams in when their league isn't that great? Because you look at the net rankings, they're around six or seven, something like that. But they've got a lot of teams that look like nine or 10 seats. It's just the way it is. They have to fill the field out. So, I mean, we get it. Somebody's got to lose those games. That's what I always say. We are.

I mean, we might have two teams in the first four. Who knows? Mike DeCorcy of the Sporting News at TSN Mike on Twitter. All right. And it ended up not mattering. But you and I were messing around this on Twitter the other day. Why did we have a team that finished eight and nine and they hosted a playoff game against a team that won 12 games?

This is not the first time it's happened. Carolina at seven, eight and one won a playoff game with a losing record. The Seattle Seahawks at seven and nine, going back about 10 or so years, won a playoff game at home with a seven and nine record.

Why is it so hard to say, all right, you're going to get in by winning a bad division, but we can't reward you with a home game, especially when it's against a good team? I was I wrote that column for it appeared on Monday, the day of the Cowboys Bucks game. And I really thought and probably some of the resistance was because it was the Cowboys.

But I was really surprised by how much resistance I got to that column. I like people are so conditioned to this is the way it is that they live with it being very smart. It's a it's a really dumb construct to say because you're a division champion, you're automatically a top four seed. And I think the best illustration of this is that this is true because I looked it up. If you had this process in place for the NCAA tournament last year, instead of being seated at two, Duke would have been, I believe, a 10 instead of being like a 14.

I think it was Colgate would have been like a six. That's right. That I mean, it's it's a ridiculous process.

And I and I was speaking to my editor, Bill Troji, yesterday when we met and and we talked about this. And honestly, that's one of the flaws in the expansion plan for the college football playoff. That's the four highest rated conference champions will get automatic bids. OK, cool. But also home games.

I don't think that's necessary. They take the take the again, take the four highest seeded teams. Like if it's Georgia, Alabama, ones twelve and one and the others thirteen and oh, it should both get a home game. That's or Ohio State and Michigan or whatever league it is.

And so if they're if they're two of the four best teams, I have no problem with. I just want automatic qualification because it tells you and this is true in every sport. If you do this, you are part of the championship you're seeking. And this is true in every right now, in every sport, but college football essentially around the world. If you do this, you're in college football currently and it'll go away in twenty four.

It's do whatever and we'll let you know. And so I would like to see the NFL be rational about this. I had some people saying, yeah, but the schedules aren't balanced.

And I'm like, OK, but here's the thing. You play basically a third of your schedule against your division. So if you can't use that advantage in a bad division to put yourself into a position where you have one of the best records, like if you're Tampa Bay this year and you're playing in the in the NFC South, a division that the Steelers played as one as part of the rotation, they played every team in that division and rolled them all.

Yeah. And the Steelers were not exactly these were the twenty third. These were the twenty twenty two Steelers, not the nineteen seventy five Steelers. And they rolled through that.

And so Tampa couldn't use that advantage to put together a better record than the Cowboys playing in a division that now constitutes seventy five percent of the remaining NFC playoff field. Come on, man. You've got to be smarter than that. This is the NFL. It's the best sports organization on the planet.

You've got to be smarter than that. Well, it's not the best sports organization on the planet. It's oh, no, I'm I'm I think it's no, I think the product and its appeal is.

But I would rank the NFL, how it's run, who it's run by as about the 11th best sports organization on the planet. Oh, yeah. No, no.

I've said this. I don't know how many times they they they succeed in spite of themselves because it's a it's a product that just the the the American public and really the world who who has experienced it. It's just they devour it. Thirty, almost thirty one million people watched a terrible football game on Monday night. They just have, I mean, so many viewers, so much interest that it's they cannot screw it up. It's impossible to screw up the NFL. They're trying, but it's with I mean, we'll eventually have 18 games and we'll probably have games five nights a week. They're going to try and destroy it, but they can't. It's it's it's an undefeated proposition in spite of themselves. But that I happen to think they do really well with their competition and that this is one of the huge, significant flaws.

I think they do some. But I mean, look, the NHL has the worst player safety department. Major League Baseball has no salary cap.

And so, like, they're already a man. Don't start with the salary cap. This is where we should just so we can have an argument next time you come back. Just so we can have an argument.

You and I should talk about the salary cap and what it doesn't do. OK, we should do that. Like we could do it.

We could do an hour, man. We could. We could. We could. We could. Then we could.

We would go have Diet Cokes and light ice. Mike, of course, you're the best. I appreciate your time, man. Thanks, Adam. You got it. Mike, of course, you have the sporting news at TSN.

Mike on Twitter. Seriously. They Mike and I go back and forth about what the salary but what the salary cap should do. Because the theory is that, oh, man, it spreads out talent. No, no, it doesn't. I'm not going to get a soapbox about this.

It just keeps more money in owner's pockets. But if you're into that, that's cool. I'm I'm all about I'm all about you. Do you get what you want?