Why the Big Ten ACC Challenge Matters

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This week I have seen a number of posts in forums and blog comments asking "why the B10/ACC Challenge matters". Most of them come from fans of other conferences and I can understand that it matters less to those people. However, irrespective of which conference you grew up with, the B10/ACC Challenge does matter for college hoops --- and here is why.

1. Most Final Fours - Whether you look at the last 10 years or the last 30 years, no two conferences have put more teams in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament than the ACC and the Big Ten. During the last 10 years, the ACC and Big Ten have produced 9 and 8 Final Four teams, respectively. Next closest -- the Big East with only 5!! And during the past 30 years, the ACC and Big Ten have produced 32 and 21 Final Four teams, respectively. The SEC was next with 19. Read full story here.

2. Large Basketball Following - Lets face it; college hoops has thrived because TV viewers watch it. The B10 is known to have the largest following (because of the total number of graduates) in the country. The ACC has long been considered the perennial basketball conference -- which good reason (see Point 1 above). While I don't have hard viewer facts, I would guess that these are the two most watched conferences in college hoops -- and if they are not the Top 2, then they are 2 of the Top 3 -- with the Big East.

3. Best Coaches - Top to Bottom - These two conferences have more "legendary" coaches than any other two conferences. Between them there are likely 4 Hall of Fame coaches - Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Tom Izzo and likly Bo Ryan (when all is said and done). The Big 10 has more "big name" coaches than any conference including Izzo, Ryan, Tubby Smith, Beilein, Matta, Weber and Crean. The ACC is also star studded with Krzyzewski, Williams, Gary Williams, Skinner, Purnell and Lowe. Successful basketball comes down to coaching and talent.

4. Exciting Games - The last two years this has been a very competitive challenge with the ACC winning in 2008 6-5 and this year the B10 winning 6-5. What's more in this years challenge, the 11 games were decided by a total of 79 points or about 7 per game. If you through out 3 games that were decided by 12 points each, then the other 8 games averaged 5 points difference. It was a very competitive and exciting battle.


Whether you like or dislike these conferences, they matter in college basketball. This challenge gives us valuable insights into how the teams stack up against teams in another top conference. I, for one, look forward to many more years of competitive, exciting B10/ACC Challenges to come.