Brad Brownell stands up for quality of ACC

Ahead of the ACC Tournament, Clemson head coach Brad Brownell continued his crusade fighting for the ACC and its quality compared to other conferences.

If you’ve listened to Brownell throughout the year, you know he hasn’t shied away from discussing the perception of conferences and how he believes the NET rankings are skewed more favorably toward certain conferences.

“I think our league is way better than people think it is or it gets credit,” he said at media availability prior to the tournament.

“Obviously, I’ve said that been pretty outspoken about it, and you know, I think some of the NET rankings show that we’ve got five in the top 50 right now. Virginia is 51 and Virginia Tech is 56. And then we’ve got a bunch, five more teams that are kind of between 79 and and 99, and that’s probably where our league gets drawn down compared to some other leagues, because those games are Quad 3 games at home,” Brownell explained.

The ACC places two in the top-10, but only five in the top 50 with another five teams below 95th in the NET rankings as of Saturday morning. There are quality opportunities out there, but there’s also just too many bad teams in the ACC this season really weighing the league down.

“We played five of them: NC State, Syracuse twice this year, Florida State, BC and Miami. Those home games are like Quad 3 games. So really, in theory, those can only hurt you, you know.”

However, Brownell believes there is a way to game the system and schedule differently to make some of those Quad 3 games into Quad 2 games.

“As a league, we probably have to figure out a way through some of the scheduling to make sure that some of our teams have a chance to to end up in that Quad 2, as many as possible,” he said. “Because it feels like some other leagues are doing a better job of that.”

Like those other leagues, Brad Brownell believes there is top-to-bottom quality in the ACC as well.

“But I think those teams are all good teams, very worthy, and can certainly beat anybody on any night. You know, I think it’s important as a league that we keep working to do that.”

So, Brownell is upset basically that the middle and bottom of thew Big 12 is significantly stronger and provides more Quad 2 opportunities vs. Quad 3 or 4. But that’s because, frankly, the lower-half teams in the Big 12 are leaps and bounds better than teams in similar spots in the ACC standings.

Matching up the standings, the ACC’s 9-11 finishers were Florida State, NC State and Boston College — all well out of the NCAA Tournament picture. Meanwhile, the Big 12 boasts Oklahoma, Kansas State and Cincinnati at 9-11 in their standings, all of which are on the bubble or in the projected field. Factually speaking, the Big 12 has better-performing teams from top to bottom.

Either way, none of this really matters for Clemson, who finished with a solid ACC record and put together a remarkable non-conference resume to have an NCAA Tournament berth locked up long before the postseason began.