Based on the historical record, the ACC is due. Arguably, overdue.
Not that long ago the ACC was a regular supplier of Final Four entrants and NCAA champions. Fifteen ACC representatives captured national titles between the start of the conference in 1953-54 through UVa’s triumph in ’19. That’s an average of better than once every five years.
Rarely did the modern ACC – reasonably identified as post-1979-80, when it added Georgia Tech and grew to eight teams– go without at least placing a team in the Final Four. The longest drought came between 2011 and 2014.
This decade the ACC has only flirted with transcendent success. Since the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, ACC teams reached the Final Four in four straight years (2022-2025), yet none came away with an NCAA championship. Last season they were shut out, even of the Final Four, and extended their league-wide status a step below their centuries-long rival, the SEC.
The SEC had 14 NCAA men’s entrants in 2025 compared to 4 for the ACC. Last year the reputational hit was lessened, reflected with 8 ACC bids to 10 for the SEC.
Virginia provided the most recent pinnacle performance in 2019 under Tony Bennett, the sole national title for the Cavaliers in three Final Four appearances (1981 and 1984 under Terry Holland, and 2019).
However, for all the knocks taken by the league, the ACC hasn’t exactly fallen by the wayside.
Over the past 11 seasons in which the NCAA tournament was played – 2020, the Covid-19 year, was fallow — ACC teams won three national titles (2015, 2017, 2019) and made 10 Final Four appearances.
Counting 2015, the year Duke won the last of its five NCAA championships, 23 ACC squads advanced to a regional final or beyond. Two, UNC in 2017 and UVa in 2019, also won it all.
The ACC’s widespread internal strength endures. Five different programs sent a team to a Final Four in the past eight years. Ten reached regional finals (also known as the Elite Eight) over the past five years, an average of two per season, led by Duke in each of the past three tournaments.
A handsome 24 ACC squads advanced to a Sweet 16 or beyond in the eight seasons since Carolina won it all in 2017.
| NOW AND THEN ACC Showings In Recent NCAA Tournaments (Non-ACC Teams In Italics, Listed By Farthest Advance) |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Champ | Final 4 | Elite 8 | Sweet 16 | In | 1Seed |
| 2026 | Michigan | x | Duke | x | 8 | 1 |
| 2025 | Florida | Duke | x | x | 5 | 1 |
| 2024 | UConn | NC State | Duke, Clem | NC 5 | 1 | |
| 2023 | UConn | Miami | NC State | Pitt | 5 | 0 |
| 2022 | Kansas | UNC, Duke | Miami | ND | 5 | 0 |
| 2021 | Baylor | x | x | FS, SU | 7 | 0 |
| 2020 | No NCAA Tournament | |||||
| 2019 | Virginia | x | Duke | FS, NC, VT | 7 | 3 |
| 2018 | Villanova | x | D,FS,SU | Clem | 9 | 1 |
| 2017 | UNC | x | x | x | 9 | 1 |
| 2016 | Villanova | UNC, SU | ND, V | D, Miami | 7 | 2 |
| 2015 | Duke | x | UL, ND | NC, NCS | 6 | 1 |
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