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The Real ACC Tournament Friday

One of my crazier memories of past ACC tournaments was 1993. I took Friday afternoon off to watch it at home. There was snow in the weather forecast, but it looked manageable (I was COO of a Nursing Home company with 30 locations across Virginia).

Just before tipoff for the first game, I checked the local news and heard the weatherman say "this storm has an unlimited potential for snow". I threw a couple of changes of clothes in my go bag and headed back to work, stayed in my office all weekend, and missed the rest of the tournament. Roanoke ended up with 16" of snow, while other areas got over 20". All of our buildings were OK, but 10 people in SW Virginia died that weekend and the roofs of several businesses collapsed.
 
DownEastDeac said:
I was at the game, seats on the side near the GT basket. A group of GT football players were seated near us, and one guy, the entire game, hollered "c'mon Big Steph...take us to the Final Four baybeee!!!". I was so happy when "Big Steph" missed that final shot, mostly so fb guy finally shut the hell up.
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You know WHY he missed. Right? Or who helped him miss.
 
Thanks for starting this thread. There are few things I pine for more than the good old days of the ACC tournament. Like many eastern NC school children of the 70s, 80s and 90s, the memory of the cart wheeling into the classroom for the Friday noon game is a strong one. I never tire of hearing or reading other peoples’ memories of the tournament. Unlike everything else in life I may be nostalgic for, I feel the ACC tournament of old was actually as good as I remember it being.
 
Once upon a time, the ACC tournament was the only post season conference tournament, the winner was the conference champion and the only team to go to the NCAA tournament. The urgency and importance of each game was played as if the entire season depended upon winning three games in three days. Nothing else mattered. Most of the nation thought it was an incredibly stupid idea and the conference was often the object of derision and ridicule. However, the entire nation would watch the title game on TV on Sunday afternoon knowing it was the highest stakes game of the regular season. That's why it was unique and special.
 
I really miss the old ACC tournament format. At my high school in the early 80s they would set up a TV in the commons and many teachers would let students out to watch the games in the afternoons, or let them leave class early to see the games. And of course at lunch everybody would gather in the commons to watch the games. Other teachers would sometimes show games on the TVs in their classroom if they had them. Good times - ACC Tourney Fridays were like an unofficial state holiday. And like many other posters here have said, it just isn't the same now. Other than Wake, I rarely watch many other games in the tournament now, except maybe the championship game. The energy and fun and intensity is just gone for the most part.
 
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Spent the 60s listening on my pocket transistor until middle and hs teachers started rolling in the TVs(my mom was one of those teachers). Spent lots of the 70s as undergrad and grad student buying and selling extra tickets so I could go for free. Then truly lived this kid's dream by spending most of the 80s on the bench at ACC and NCAA tourneys. So Damn lucky
 
Add me to the list as a child of the 80s. After we won back-to-back tourneys in '95 and '96 (I was there in person for part of the '95 tourney), I remember thinking that there was no way we'd have another 32-year title drought like the one that came before those. Oh, well.
 
inspectah said:
Add me to the list as a child of the 80s. After we won back-to-back tourneys in '95 and '96 (I was there in person for part of the '95 tourney), I remember thinking that there was no way we'd have another 32-year title drought like the one that came before those. Oh, well.
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When the coach who found the talent on those teams is shown the door and his successor has an untimely unexpected death, it takes time to recover.
 
Deaconblue said:
When the coach who found the talent on those teams is shown the door and his successor has an untimely unexpected death, it takes time to recover.
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Ok, so what is your adequate time table for recovery? The year 2040?
 
Deaconblue said:
When the coach who found the talent on those teams is shown the door and his successor has an untimely unexpected death, it takes time to recover.
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It shouldn't take 15 years. In hindsight, it was a mistake to not make Dino the interim coach, also making it clear that he was a candidate for the permanent job. Then conduct a national search the following year. But Dino led to Bz and Bz led to Manning. Mistake leads to mistake leads to mistake.
 
WFU71 said:
One of my crazier memories of past ACC tournaments was 1993. I took Friday afternoon off to watch it at home. There was snow in the weather forecast, but it looked manageable (I was COO of a Nursing Home company with 30 locations across Virginia).

Just before tipoff for the first game, I checked the local news and heard the weatherman say "this storm has an unlimited potential for snow". I threw a couple of changes of clothes in my go bag and headed back to work, stayed in my office all weekend, and missed the rest of the tournament. Roanoke ended up with 16" of snow, while other areas got over 20". All of our buildings were OK, but 10 people in SW Virginia died that weekend and the roofs of several businesses collapsed.
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We all remember that snow storm. And that was back when the ACC Tournament was must see TV and I basically treated that Friday like Christmas day. Need to replace that Friday with SOMETHING new, I suppose, not even on a Friday...maybe Cyber Monday or something.
 
LilburnDeac said:
It shouldn't take 15 years. In hindsight, it was a mistake to not make Dino the interim coach, also making it clear that he was a candidate for the permanent job. Then conduct a national search the following year. But Dino led to Bz and Bz led to Manning. Mistake leads to mistake leads to mistake.
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Of course some of us made that argument at the time. Being sentimental made the impact of Skip’s death on the program last far longer than it should have.
 
PhDeac said:
Of course some of us made that argument at the time. Being sentimental made the impact of Skip’s death on the program last far longer than it should have.
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Definitely. We are still experiencing that impact.
 
Going back to the 60's if my memory is correct the only game televised was the ACC finals. Sometime in the late 60's, around 1970 the semis were added and shortly thereafter the entire tournament was televised. I recall in high school in the late 60's since none of the first two rounds were televised we use to sneak transistor radios into class and run the earphones up our sleeves to listen to the games. If it was a study hall usually the teacher would ignore this practice but if it was a regular class one had to be innovative to be able to keep from being detected. Some great stories on this thread. Thanks for posting!
 
Forbes did not seem that excited about the ACC Tournament saying "we are already in that."

He really leaned forward when he started talking about the NCAAT as the goal. "Got to keep stacking the wins."

I mean, the ACCT is in Brooklyn, so I get it.
 
LOL at “we are already in that.” Dude needs a history lesson.
 
The ACC Tournament lost a lost of its luster once the NCAA started taking "at large" teams.

For the first 20+ years of its existence, winning the ACC Tournament was the only way to get into the NCAA National Championship Tournament. That meant epic high stakes games. And some good to great ACC teams never got the chance to play in the NCAA Tournament because they lost in the ACC Tournament.

Some will still claim Dean was robbed of a national title by Wake in the 1973 ACC Tournament.
 
Deaconblue said:
The ACC Tournament lost a lost of its luster once the NCAA started taking "at large" teams.

For the first 20+ years of its existence, winning the ACC Tournament was the only way to get into the NCAA National Championship Tournament. That meant epic high stakes games. And some good to great ACC teams never got the chance to play in the NCAA Tournament because they lost in the ACC Tournament.

Some will still claim Dean was robbed of a national title by Wake in the 1973 ACC Tournament.
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I think it was more expansion and the general decline of college basketball than that. That and rotating of the site. When it was Friday through Sunday in Greensboro every year Bri geographically close teams together who had face each other in a home and away round robin throughout the year. It was exciting. You also had better attendance because the ticket sections weren’t diluted as much.
 
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