Fans flocked to watch Magic play anywhere Michigan State played.
By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
The Big Ten has had the coaches, plenty of players but more than anything, it has the fans. There's something about Big Ten sports, notably football and basketball, that is unparalleled. The fans simply follow the game, wherever the game is in the Midwest or anywhere else.
Iowa fans travel. So, too, do Illinois, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio State, Michigan. And here's what they're seeing, plenty of good basketball.
The Big Ten race with Michigan State and Illinois last season, and likely Illinois and Iowa this season, are some of the hardest fought affairs in the country. The fans definitely get into this thing, certainly like the ACC in Duke and Carolina or Duke and Maryland, but it runs deeper. The ACC affection is there for at least seven of the nine schools, but for all 11, the devotion to hoops runs strong (even at Northwestern and Penn State).
The Big Ten, known for its get-tough play, definitely has some of the toughest arenas to play in the country with both Assembly Halls in Champaign and Bloomington, the Breslin Center in East Lansing, Williams Arena in Minneapolis and Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City and Mackey Arena in West Lafayette as some of the hardest places to play in the nation.
Along with fans and the arenas they fill, the Big Ten's coaches have always been legendary from Bob Knight and Lou Henson to now Tom Izzo, and on the rise are Bill Self, Steve Alford, Dan Monson and Jim O'Brien. Players? Don't even try to list 'em all, just visit the Hall of Fame sometime.
Big Ten teams used to have a problem with deep runs in the NCAA Tournament, but that seems to have been solved recently with Final Four appearances by Michigan State (three straight), Ohio State, Minnesota and Wisconsin since 1997. Purdue was in the Elite Eight two seasons ago and Illinois was there last season. That's why the Big Ten tournament has probably helped prepare the conference champ for a deeper run.
The Big Ten should probably review its schedule, though. Teams not playing each other twice, even though it would mean 20 league games, is a mistake. The regular-season champ is no longer a true champion and that hurts the title. That's one thing the ACC has over the Big Ten that it can't recapture until it changes the schedule. The imbalanced scheduling has too much of an effect on the standings. But win this regular-season title or tournament title and that team can be a national title contender.
This league has as much tradition as any other league and when the conference tournament hits Indianapolis in March, the colors will be in full glory from most of the schools -- just like the ACC and the Big 12, two of the other conferences who'll travel to wherever their teams take them across the country.
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MJ is just the start to a long list of great players who graced ACC courts.
By Jay Bilas
Special to ESPN.com
Several conferences have great history and tradition, and have a lot to be proud of. However, the Atlantic Coast Conference is history and tradition. All you have to do is thumb through the ACC record books and ponder the greatness of the players and coaches chronicled, and you will find several in the Nasmith Hall of Fame, and several others on the way to Springfield, Mass.
Coaches like Dean Smith, Frank McGuire, Vic Bubas, Mike Krzyzewski, Norm Sloan, Everett Case, and Jim Valvano accomplished great things, and some of them greatly influenced and even changed the game. Smith and Krzyzewski are arguably two of the five best coaches in the history of the game, and that may be conservative. Smith has won more games than any other coach in history, and Krzyzewski has navigated the NCAA Tournament better than any coach in history, save Wooden.
The list of truly great players that the ACC has produced is enough to make any measly All-American feel inadequate. David Thompson may have been the greatest player in ACC history. Ralph Sampson was a three-time national player of the year, and impacted a college game like few others. Michael Jordan is the best player in the history of the game, and he was great at North Carolina long before he was great with the Chicago Bulls. Phil Ford, Tim Duncan, Mark Price, Johnny Dawkins, Len Bias, Sam Perkins, Grant Hill, Walter Davis, John Lucas, James Worthy, Dickie Hemric, Len Chappell, Christian Laettner, Danny Ferry, Brad Daugherty and Bobby Hurley, to name but a few, all had distinguished careers and hold places of honor in the history of college basketball. And that list is a short one.
ACC teams have always been strong on the national level. Since 1954, the ACC has hung eight national championship banners, appeared in 19 title games, and garnered 37 Final Four berths. The ACC Tournament is still the grandest postseason tournament in the game, and has produced many of the greatest games in college basketball history. In fact, the two games that are currently argued as being the greatest of all time featured ACC teams: Duke's win over Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Tournament, and N.C. State's win over Maryland in the 1974 ACC Tournament.
The team that wins the ACC regular season or tournament title is a bona fide national title contender. Every game in ACC play has the feel of a truly big game, and the league is accorded fan and media support commensurate with that boast.
There are other conferences that can claim to be better in any particular year, but over the long haul, no conference can legitimately claim to be any better. Believe what you will about the best league, coach or player in college basketball history. There can be no legitimate discussion of the best in any of the foregoing categories without the ACC, its coaches or players figuring prominently in the discussion. The ACC has been that good, and there is no end in sight.
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