A month ago, a preview of this tournament would probably have been titled: “Which ACC team will lose to Notre Dame by the least amount of points?” Parity finally breached the walls of the conference over the past few weeks, welcoming in a wave of postseason competition.
The ACC, like its fellow Power Four conferences, awards the top four seeds a double bye, affording them an automatic bid to the quarterfinals. That means that seeds No. 10 through No. 16 have to win five games in five days for a title, seeds No. 5 through No. 9 have to win four in four days and seeds No. 1 through No. 4 only have to win three. The top-seeded teams in the ACC will likely all be voted into March Madness, but an automatic NCAA Tournament bid will make the lesser teams even hungrier for an ACC title.
The frontrunners
Ranked No. 7 and No. 6 in the nation, respectively, NC State and Notre Dame, the conference’s top two teams, are well prepared to make a run at both an ACC and NCAA championship. The two met each other in late February, and the luck of the…
