Sweet Dreams

The ACC may not be quite as successful sending teams to the Sweet 16 as it used to be, but at least it's still represented. The last time the league failed to place a team in the NCAA regional semifinals was 1979, when Archie Miller, coach of Sweet 16 contestant Dayton and a former N.C. State guard, was a year old.

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No other league can match the ACC for consecutive years sending teams to the Sweet 16. Some of the power conferences don't even come close.

The Pac-12, with three entrants this season, had none survive playing a pair of NCAA contests just two seasons ago. The SEC, yet another conference with three entrants in 2014, was shut out of the Sweet 16 as recently as 2009. The Big 10, likewise represented by three teams this year, whiffed in 2006.

Since 1990, a period of a quarter-century, only the Big East has exceeded the ACC in the number of its teams in the Sweet 16. And of course the Big East now lies broken like a sidewalk attacked by a jackhammer, and for comparative purposes is dead.

Most distressing from an ACC perspective, since 2000 three leagues have been better represented in the Sweet 16 - the old Big East, the Big 10 and the Big 12.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski recently dubbed the Big 12 this season's best conference, status borne out by a variety of ratings such as those of RealTimeRPI.com and Jeff Sagarin of USA Today.

Over the five year span starting in 2010, when Duke won the national title, the ACC has seen nine of its teams reach the Sweet 16. That's third-best during that half-decade, after the Big 10 (16) and SEC (10).