The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
ACC media day under cloud again
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 more prestige and financial power, the conference 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 the Oct. 25 media day, two of last year’s ACC participants in the NCAA Tournament — Louisville and Miami — are front and center of a 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 escorts 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.”
Two years ago it was Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim who was on the hot seat during ACC media day. He was eventually suspended for nine league games, among other penalties for the Orange, as punishment following an NCAA investigation that involved the team prior to Syracuse joining the ACC in 2013.
Of course, scandals and NCAA investigations are not new to college basketball.
“I don’t think it’s totally fair to think scandal comes with expansion,” said Seth Greenberg, an ESPN college basketball analyst who won two ACC coach of the year awards in nine seasons at Virginia Tech. “There were issues with teams in the league before.” That’s certainly true. The Tar Heels athletic program was under NCAA investigation over academic issues for several years, a case that was recently resolved without penalties for North Carolina sports’ teams.