ACC annually meets under dark cloud
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Another Atlantic Coast Conference basketball media day. Another scandal casting a shadow over the gathering.
It has been that way since the league’s most recent expansions.
While there’s no question in the three years since the ACC expanded to a 15-team basketball league that the move has brought the conference more basketball prestige and financial power. But the ACC has also found itself squarely in the middle of some embarrassing scandals.
Standing in the crosshairs of federal investigations and NCAA inquiries has put conversations on placing a record nine teams in the NCAA Tournament last March and two national championships in three years on the back burner.
“Anytime you expand, there’s more chance for growth, but there’s more chance for issues,” Clemson
coach Brad Brownell said.
The ACC has gotten more than it bargained for with expansion over the last four years. Heading into Wednesday’s media day, two of last year’s ACC participants in the NCAA Tournament — Louisville and Miami — are front and center of an ongoing federal investigation into college basketball corruption.
The biggest toll fell on the Cardinals, who have fired coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich for cause. Four assistant coaches — all from teams among the Power Five conferences, but not the ACC — were arrested and charged in a fraud and corruption scheme.
Earlier this week, Miami coach Jim Larranaga acknowledged that he believes he is unnamed “Coach-3” in federal documents that is alleged to have had conversations with an Addidas executive on paying a recruit $150,000.
Larranaga has denied any wrongdoing.
Last year, Pitino returned to media day after skipping 2015 amid the NCAA investigation and calmly praised the governing body for its professionalism as it hit Louisville with four major violations and said the national championship coach had failed to monitor a former staffer who paid for escort and strippers at sex parties for recruits and players.
ACC Commissioner John Swofford isn’t happy about the black eye Louisville has given the league, but doesn’t regret inviting the Cardinals to join the conference.
“Not pleased about recent events,” Swofford said. “But it was the right decision at the time and can be the right decision in the long term.”