It is interesting to me that we are able to compete in the ACC in football since expansion, but suck ass in basketball. I do not ever see us being better than .500 in conference (ever) when having to compete with Duke, Carolina, St8te, Miami, FSU, VT, ND, and Syracuse. It's probably been discussed, but I'd like to hear what PhDeac and Donald Ross have to say about the expansion aspect and losing with our basketball program. Wellman, Hatch, and the BOT have much blame here.....
This was totally predictable and I posted about during the talks to admit VT into the conference. One of Wake's biggest advantages is being in the ACC. It gave us a leg up on Big East programs. When we let more teams into the ACC, we diluted that advantage. Now there are 14 other teams who can make the same claim. VT was never a real threat to us before expansion. Now they've passed us.
Now clearly if we had handled Skip's death better and hired a real coach after an interim year, we'd probably be better off although it would still be more of a challenge to recruit and compete in an expanded league than before.
ACC expansion is one issue that happened along with overall conference expansion and program movement, expanded TV/streaming contracts, and Gonzaga and Butler, that made a job like Wake less exclusive. There's simply a bigger pool of programs who can legitimately get an at-large bid from year to year. There are way more programs in the traditional power conferences plus the new Big East, and even the traditional multi-bid conferences like CUSA, Mountain West, A-10, and WAC are bigger. Far more programs have a legitimate shot at basically the same number of spots. 20 wins can't even guarantee you the NIT.
Expanded TV/streaming means there's more money for coaches. It also means a kid can get on TV playing pretty much anywhere. As far as Wake, TV vs. streaming is a big factor. How many times was Wake on TV, actual TV that someone outside of NC could watch, last year? I'm not going to bother counting, but I know there are plenty of programs in the Big East, CUSA, and even mid-major conferences who were on the ESPN family of networks, CBS Sports Network, NBC Sports Network, and other actual TV options more than Wake. Way more teams get on TV nowadays. Now sure Wake could reestablish that advantage with good teams, but that advantage would help us lure a legit coach.
Gonzaga and Butler are particularly interesting daggers. Based on the 80s and 90s model, Mark Few would have left Gonzaga for a traditional power in the early to mid-00s. His predecessor, Dan Monson left for Minnesota after two good years. Instead, he stayed at Gonzaga and showed that a great coach could consistently win at a small private school no one had heard about before from a minor conference.
Butler came on the scene about the same time and showed that a small program can continually hire good coaches and stay a top program at a small private school no one had heard about before from a minor conference. They won their way into the new Big East and now they're basically a new power program.
The landscape is much tougher for Wake than it used to be. But if we hired a good coach, we could be a regular NCAAT program in no time.
What's nuts is the conference expansion made ACC football more exclusive. The ACC gutted the Big East in football, whereas the Big East rebuilt itself into a strong conference in basketball. There's less overall competition in the football landscape compared to before. Wake offers an exclusive spot in the big time. We get on TV more often than not. We can pick up last minute recruits who committed to MAC schools. The ACC is one of the top conferences. In a more exclusive landscape, our games against the top schools get good TV coverage.
