As Usual, Power Conferences Dominate The Sweet Sixteen

Certainly the ACC has plenty to crow about this year, with six teams in the Sweet 16. Last season it had five teams get this far.

In the last two years the ACC had as many Sweet 16 entrants (11, for those weak on math) as the Pac-12 has had over the past seven seasons. Over the past three years the ACC has enjoyed as many Sweets (12) as the SEC had in the seven years since 2010.

Only the Big 10 matches, and actually eclipses by one, the ACC’s participation in the Sweet 16 since the start of this decade.

The 2015 and 2016 survival rate by ACC teams surely adds luster to claims the new, improved, bigfoot-print conference is or will be the best in the nation. Having Duke win the national championship last season, after the league’s four-year failure to send a team to the Final Four, reinforced that narrative.

Now the ACC has a three in eight chance (with 37.5 percent of the field) of sending at least one member to the 2016 Final Four.

As discussed earlier in this space, this is the fifth time the ACC has a pair of No. 1 seeds in the NCAA field – Carolina and Virginia; on each of those previous occasions the league sent a team to the Final Four.

Duke and Miami have no fellow conference members in their path until the Final Four. UNC and Notre Dame, Virginia and Syracuse are one game removed from facing each other for a shot at the Final Four. The ACC champion Tar Heels and Fighting Irish split two meetings this season, at South Bend and in the ACC Tournament, while Syracuse lost at UVa on Jan. 24.

It’s also worth noting that, for all the endless parity patter, the trend since 1990 continues to be toward fewer Sweet 16 entrants from non-power conferences.

During the 1990s 72.1 percent of the teams advancing to the regional semifinals came from the six most powerful basketball leagues (including some version of the Big East). During the period from 2000 through 2009 the power inclusion rate rose to 80.0 percent.

Since 2010 the power portion has been 82.1 percent, with a single outsider in the Sweet 16 in 2016, the fewest this decade. Sure, Stephen F. Austin, Northern Iowa, Middle Tennessee State et al almost got that far. But almost still doesn’t count.