So why is the ACC so “bad”?

This is the best of the Adam Gold Show Podcast, brought to you by Coach Pete at Capital Financial Advisory Group.

Visit us at CapitalFinancialUSA.com. I appreciate your time, sir. By the way, that's a true story. You and I talk a lot, but that is a true story about my wife.

She would leave me for Roger or for Robert Plant in a minute. So, why is the ACC so bad? Why do we not like nice things? Are we just going to be a two-bit league or what? I don't think it'll be a two-bit league, no, but I think that what I don't understand at this stage is why the ACC is still in the complaining phase of this. I'm in it. I've been in it for three months. I'm not talking about three months.

I'm talking about three years. How are the ACC coaches still complaining instead of taking some level of action? Whatever that action might be, why hasn't it been taken by now? If they think the key is to schedule easier, why aren't they doing it? They should. I agree with you. Why are they still complaining?

I've been saying this for a long time. I don't think that's the answer, but I think that's what they think it is. It is the answer because I do believe that that's what the Big 12 did.

Not the Kansases or the Balers of the world or even the Huesons of the world, but everybody else. They all scheduled as much trash as they could fit into a hefty bag and beat the stuffing out of it. When they got the conference, I don't want to make this about the Big 12, but in a way they gamed the net. Every single conference game becomes a quad one.

No worse than a quad two, but probably a quad one. The ACC doesn't have a lot of those. Here's the thing that bothers me about that assertion that they gamed the net. If they gamed the net, that means they gamed Ken Palm.

Ken Palm is like the Bible. You're not allowed to say that the Bible's been gamed. Well, they did. It's about margin of victory. No one will come out and say that. They will only say that it's the net because that's the NCAA's creation and we can criticize the NCAA, but we cannot criticize Ken. There either is validity in those numbers or there is not. Look, I think there is some validity in the numbers, but there are some differences, but there's not a ton of differences.

Here's what I didn't understand. Again, I don't really want to make this about the Big 12. The fact that BYU was a top 10 team in all of these metrics for such a long time, and I'm not saying they're not good.

I'm not saying that they're all bad, but Adam Gold in studio with my man coach Pete DeRuta, Capital Financial Advisory Group. Let's talk about financial termites. I hate termites. Risk, fees, commissions are all financial termites. If your money can go away without you really realizing what's happened, that's a financial termite.

Eating away your money can't happen. We can exterminate those, Adam. We help people identify and exterminate financial termites every single day. So you would be the financial red ants that get rid of the termites. Sure. People don't know that.

Red ants get rid of termites. Text Adam to 600-700 for coach Pete DeRuta. There's no planet on which BYU was a top 10 team. Right.

And they found themselves in the top 10 or 15 of all of the, you know, whether it was Ken Palm or Bart Torvik or the net. And that is because everybody figured out, like I'd been begging the ACC to schedule down in football for years because there's no mechanism to reward a good non-conference schedule. Look at Michigan and yeah, and I and obviously the Big 12 has figured that out this year whether it was intentional or not.

I suspect that it was, but that's fine. You do what you whatever it is you do to help your league. I don't think the ACC should be playing 20 conference games either because I could be wrong here. But if you win a conference game, you also lose a conference game. So well, I will say this, Adam, that having 20 conference games did not hurt the Big 10 at all the last three years or the last four years. Because I think they had 20 in 2020 and they would have gotten 10 teams that year.

Then they went 998 and it was really close to 993 years in a row. So playing 20 games did not hurt the league at all. I don't think that that's a problem, but I mean, I when I look at I'm working on something about this and where where the ACC really filed up in this is that Georgia Tech wasn't good.

And they basically screamed it to the world. We're not good by playing a really difficult schedule. Yes. I mean, and those kinds of things are repeated through several levels of, you know, Louisville did not Louisville did not schedule hard. They just lost anyway.

They're terrible. But but the bottom of the ACC played much too hard schedules and made their made themselves look even worse than they are. And so where's the where's the strategy for this? You go to Destin or or somewhere in Florida, one of those island Amelia Island.

Yes, Amelia Island. Yeah, and you get together and you talk about this stuff. And what do you do? What are you talking about golf? I mean, where's the strategy in all of that? I that's what your jobs are to try to elevate the league. And all I've heard from the ACC for two, three years now is how a woe is me.

It's everybody else's fault. And no one from the ACC any has stepped forward and said, this is the smart thing to do. Let's do it. Yeah, I would play fewer conference games and I would for especially for this for the schools that don't figure to be, you know, really good going in. Make sure that your schedule is conducive to having a good record because the number one, the number one element to having a better power ranking is having a good record. And then, of course, if you're going to schedule down, don't lose those games, Louisville.

But that's another animal altogether. The other thing about playing a schedule that's not daunting. You're probably not very good. So here's what you teach your team to do by playing a difficult schedule. You know what they learn how to do? They learn how to lose. They learn how to lose. They get really good at losing and then they get in the league and they show that they're still really good at losing.

It just doesn't help you any if you aren't ready for a difficult schedule. If you're North Carolina, this North Carolina team, which has many members that have played in the final four national championship game, which has players who were McDonald's, all Americans that weren't that weren't part of the 22 team. That team should be challenging itself because it needs it needs to get sharper. It needs to be able to know what's coming when they play the biggest games in March.

But if you're if you're Georgia Tech, I mean, you just don't do that. And they did. And they paid for it. And the league is paying as well. Mike, of course, you have the sporting news speaking my language here on the Adam Gold Show. Been screaming about this for a long time. I let you mention North Carolina.

Let's dig into them a little bit. My favorite thing. And, you know, I cover the hurricanes. I want Cormac Ryan to put on a pair of skates and play on a third line because I think he's the he will stir it up and get stuff done. He's an element, I think. And Harrison Ingram has a little bit of this, too.

I love the the edge that these guys bring. I think that helps you in March. Oh, I think absolutely. I think that that having toughness that and players that that understand how far to go with it.

You know, that's that's a problem. You know, I cover Illinois a lot for for the Big Ten Network and every player named Coleman Hawkins, who's terrific. I mean, really talented, but often allows his emotions to get the better of him. And when he doesn't, he's fabulous. And when he does, it's problematic. And you have to know where that line is.

You have to know how far you can go. And and I think that that's something that Harrison that excuse me, that the court has done really well for me. Harrison Ingram has been a magnificent addition to this team. He brings so much in terms of his ability to stretch the defense and also take some of the rebounding load off of Armando Bacott. I think that bringing him in was a massive addition. And honestly, it's a massive addition for for him as well, because Harrison played on some really mediocre teams at Stanford.

I don't think you get a mediocre education out there. But there was some media mediocre hooping. And now he gets to play on a team that has a shot at a number one seed and maybe who knows, maybe another final four.

And think about I mean, didn't court Cormac started it's doing Stanford, Notre Dame and Carolina. I mean, smarts. I mean, you're going to three pretty outstanding institutions. It's kind of disgusting if you think about it.

You shouldn't you shouldn't be able to have it all. But these guys have it all. I think Mike, of course. See, I think North Carolina, I don't know where they're going to be seated.

And I mean, I don't know that it matters a ton if you're on the one line or the two line for you. And so I think if you're good, you're going to play that team either way, more than likely. I think their national championship. Good. Oh, I agree with that.

Absolutely. I think that's certainly in their in their possibility. They've got a legit pro at point guard. They've got McDonald's all America talent. They've got the experience. They've got much better chemistry than they had a year ago. I think there's a lot of qualities that they have that fit national championship capabilities.

I like their team. I think I can tell you what they won't be seated and that's anything lower than a two. I mean, they're going to be one or two. It's where they get situated is somewhat dependent on how they finish. What do they do this weekend?

What do they do next weekend? Tennessee is making a little bit of a charge. They had they've had a phenomenal last couple of weeks. They still have a difficult road ahead of them this week. South Carolina and Kentucky.

Obviously, Carolina has a Duke game, so we'll see how that works out. And then Arizona is still out there. I know some have passed Arizona. Other other analysts have passed Arizona with Tennessee.

I have not done that. Arizona's resume has some big holes in it, but they've also got some strength. Honestly, if I'm Carolina, I wouldn't mind being the two in the West. I wouldn't mind Tennessee passing me and getting to go to New York.

And I go to I go out west and because it's a long trip. But but the reality is this. Most of the better teams, especially this year with the Pac 12 being down. And honestly, the West Coast Conference is down to I mean, this Gonzaga team is better than its resume is.

But it's not what, say, the twenty twenty one Gonzaga team was or the twenty seventeen Gonzaga team was. So then you had the Pac 12 not being very strong. So the West region is pretty much everyone's last choice. And so all the better teams get to be placed as close to home as possible.

Well, California is as far as home from possible as possible. So if I'm Carolina right now, I would you know, I don't I don't know that they want to lose any games for this to happen. But if they get passed by Tennessee because Tennessee keeps winning against better teams, cool.

Ship me on a plane to L.A. and let me deal with that. If Carolina goes to Cameron Indoor Stadium and wins, though, which they absolutely can do, although I think Duke will win. But if Carolina does that and then doesn't bow out in the quarterfinals on Thursday night in D.C., I think Carolina has got a great chance to still be a number one seed.

But let me go to Duke right now. The Blue Devils seemingly have are getting it together, even though they suffered another injury. Caleb Foster is out. I'm not saying he's not important.

I think he is. But they have other players who are, I think, might make Duke more versatile, who are going to step in and fill that void. Sean Stewart, a freshman, is a super interior athlete.

It almost looks like he's moving ahead of Ryan Young as the second big behind Kyle Filipowski. What have you seen in terms of growth from the Blue Devils? The growth for me, the offense event has gotten tighter, but they always had weapons, assets, whatever you want to call them. The defense has gotten so much better. That's that's the part that I would not have anticipated them becoming this proficient on defense, in part because they don't take the ball from you and they don't block your shot. But you can't you can't run against them.

It's almost a little bit Virginia. You can't run the stuff you want to run against them because they become that locked down. They've become very hard to score against, especially in the last three weeks or so. Since the pit loss, they've become much more difficult. Or maybe the Carolina game after that. But Virginia could barely move. Miami could barely move.

Wake. They got into an up and down game on the road. Yeah, I think all all in all, you know, to be a top 20 defense with this group without a true shot blocker, really impressive by the players, by John, by the staff to be able to build that formula.

I don't think that I honestly don't think you'd have found many analysts if you asked in the preseason whether they thought this Duke team would be a top 20 defense by season's end, that you would have gotten a lot of affirmative responses. No, they've certainly been better. And yeah, they they don't really remind me that much of the 2010 team that really just kind of sat back. I mean, Brian Zubek was somebody who could block some shots and, you know, they they had Lance Thomas around the goal. But that team wasn't a great defensive team other than they kept you in front of them and they made it a little bit more difficult. I think this team is obviously more athletic than that. I think the biggest difference in them defensively has been the growth of Jared McCain on the ball, who's almost, if not better defensively on the ball than Tyrese Proctor, who last year was one of the best on ball defenders in the league. I think he's taken a little bit of a step back this year.

Maybe it's the ankle injuries that he's had. But if Proctor gets back, they could have two pretty outstanding perimeter guards who, you know, maybe Proctor's a little bit taller than McCain, but they're both strong physical defenders. Calling all North Carolina sports fans. Soon enough, DraftKings Sportsbook will be live in your state. Starting March 11th, you'll be able to bet on all your favorite sports from the comfort of your own home with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and sign up with code 999 to get up to $300 in bonus bets when you place a $5 bet once mobile sports betting goes live. Only on DraftKings Sportsbook coming soon to North Carolina on March 11th with code 999. The crown is yours.

Gambling problem? Call 877-185-543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. 21 plus North Carolina only. New customers only. Subject to regulatory licensing requirements. Maximum $300 in bonus bets.

Not available for use until March 11th, 2024. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. Deposit, wagering, and eligibility restrictions apply.

Terms at DraftKings.com slash Sportsbook slash NC. Yeah, it will not be a fun Saturday. I'm not saying that Carolina is not coming in to win, but it won't be fun either way until, if the Tar Heels win, then it will be fun. But the transaction will not be fun because Duke will not let it be.

And obviously the crazies will not let it be. It's going to be hard work to win that game on Saturday night. I know it's the best rivalry in American sports. If anybody tells you different, they've watched too many football games.

And they haven't paid enough attention to the actual results here. It's the best rivalry in American sports. And I am always jacked up when those games come around. And this one will be a terrific game because both teams have a ton to play for. Seeding, the league race, etc. It will be really fun. As long as Duke doesn't get beat tonight by NC State, if they get beat tonight, Carolina is not losing it home to Notre Dame.

That is never going to happen. So if Duke loses tonight, then the regular season is over. North Carolina will be the number, well, I think they're going to be the one seed anyway. I think they'd win a tiebreaker with Duke based on who's behind them in the standings. But either way, they would be considered co-champions of the league. Final thing for Mike DeCorcy of the Sporting News. Mike on Twitter. Forget about whether or not you think they'll get in.

And you can use whatever metric you want. Rank the next three teams in the league for me. Clemson, Wake Forest, and Virginia.

Put them in order of, in terms of, you've seen them play 1-2-3. Clemson, easy one. Probably Wake 2 and Virginia 3.

But Wake keeps, you know, it's no one's, you know, they keep taking these L's that are really badly timed and badly executed. Like they don't lose. You lose to Clemson, everybody in bracket world, and I reside there for three months a year, says, OK, you're supposed to lose that one, like on the road to Clemson. But you don't lose to Notre Dame. I mean, you just, you don't.

Not at any time of year unless you, you know, unless you're like Arizona that can afford to drop on here or there. But like if you're fighting for on the bubble, I mean, you just can't. And they did. And I think they're, I think they are a really fine team, but they put out results that hurt them. And it's, now they're going to have to do something to fight their way back. As we've discussed at the start of this conversation, the ACC doesn't provide you a steady diet of redemptive games. You have to take care of what's in front of you.

And if Notre Dame's in front of you, you have to take care of it. And they didn't. They did not.

It was very disappointing. Mike DeCorcio of the Sporting News, my friend at TSN Mike on Twitter. I will talk to you again very soon, sir. Always a pleasure, Adam.

The best. To all North Carolina sports fans, soon enough, DraftKings Sportsbook will be live in your state. Starting March 11th, you'll be able to bet on all your favorite sports from the comfort of your own home with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and sign up with code 999 to get up to $300 in bonus bets when you place a $5 bet once mobile sports betting goes live. Only on DraftKings Sportsbook coming soon to North Carolina on March 11th with code 999. The crown is yours.

Gambling problem? Call 877-185-543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. 21 Plus North Carolina only. New customers only. Subject to regulatory licensing requirements. Maximum $300 in bonus bets. Not available for use until March 11th, 2024. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance, deposit, wagering, and eligibility restrictions apply. Terms at draftkings.com slash sportsbook slash NC.