Tales from the 2005 ACC Tournament

By Nicholas F. Benton

Virginia Tech’s mascot, that chubby bull, was by far the best dancer, but I especially enjoyed the way the Clemson tiger played air guitar with his tail during lively pep band gigs at the time outs.

It was the Atlantic Coast Conference post-season men’s basketball tournament at the MCI Center in downtown Washington, D.C. For each session Thursday through Sunday last week, all 21,000 seats were filled, and no one walked away from it all disappointed by the color, the energy and the grand festival environment of it all.

Eleven schools now compete in the ACC and the fact that only one of them, the University of Maryland, is anywhere near Washington, D.C., did nothing to dampen the special atmosphere generated by such a tournament.

I saw the same thing at a Big 12 Conference tournament in Dallas a few years ago when I learned that the fight song of both Oklahoma and Oklahoma State is, you guessed it, the title tune from the Rogers and Hammerstein Broadway musical.

For my money, in the marvelous sport of college hoops, so-called “Championship Week,” the week of the post-season intra-conference tournaments, is the most fun of the season, eclipsing even the NCAA Playoffs that follow. That’s because almost every team in every conference in the country is involved, including many obscure teams fighting to a chance to make the NCAAs.

As far as TV coverage goes, there are games out the ears every day all day and night long. Attending in person, at the ACC tournament you got four games Thursday, four Friday, two Saturday and the title game Sunday, and being it’s an intra-conference affair, there are many rivalry and grudge match-ups.

In this ACC tournament there were hardly any blow-outs, either. All the teams were competitive, including marked underdogs like Clemson, which almost upset North Carolina, and Georgia Tech, which did.

The Yellow Jackets were scrappy. Their upset of Coach Roy Williams’ lauded Tar Heels was spearheaded by fireplug-shaped Will Bynum with scored 35 points. Tar Heel fans felt it was unfair of Bynum to single their team out, since he scored only a dozen points in the games both before and after.

But what’s with the mascot of the Tar Heels being a ram? Explain that to me. Also, what’s with the fixation on the demonic in the ACC? Demon Deacons? Blue Devils? I’ve been around long enough to figure out that a Terrapin is a turtle, especially since the Maryland mascot makes that clear. But what’s a Hokie? The nickname doesn’t seem to square with that porky Virginia Tech bull. Can anyone spell Krzyzewski without looking? Who knew that Virginia’s loss would be Pete Gillen’s last game as its coach?

The Yellow Jacket fans love their big Aussie with the shaggy red hair. Seven-foot, one-inch Luke Schenscher is scrawny but is not afraid to tangle. He kept getting pushed around but never gave up often keeping the ball in play under the hoop long after one would have expected a clean rebound by his foe.
Schenscher is a senior, as is N.C. State’s Julius Hodge, but most of the best players in the ACC have at least one more year to go, including North Carolina’s big three, Sean May, Rashad McCants and Raymond Felton, and Duke’s awesome shot blocker Sheldon Williams and gun, J.J. Redick.

J.J. Redick is something special. He’s got the purest shot I think I’ve ever seen. Every release from wherever he is on the court is like he’s shooting a free throw (which he does at a record-setting 93% rate of success). Even when fading back from three-point range, he manages a pure form with arms elevated over the top of his head and slightly back and the focus on a smooth as silk wrist and finger release action.
He’s taller in person than he appears on TV at six-four, but he’s not real quick and is strictly a perimeter player. So once they figured him out, it was not so hard for defenses to key on and smother him late last season. To compensate, he lost weight over last summer and realized that, like an Allen Iverson, he has to be in motion constantly, swiping past screens to get his shot and releasing more quickly.

It’s worked for him this year, and he scored 35 points in Duke’s key win over N.C. State that set the stage for its championship win over Georgia Tech.

Redick will make it at the next level as a roll-player like Steve Kerr, although I’m sure he won’t be leaving Duke early.

Unfortunately, the ACC Tournament won’t be back at the MCI Center anytime soon because conference officials feel that at 21,000 the capacity isn’t enough. But whatever your conference of choice may be, it will be well worth it to travel to get to such a tournament.