GREENSBORO, N.C. — Sometimes, the true beauty of the ACC tournament isn’t the high-powered slugfests between potential national title contenders or rivalry rubber matches. It’s the teams that mess that up, the chaos agents that wreak havoc on the best laid plans of ESPN while bursting everyone else’s bubble.
That doesn’t necessarily have to mean winning it — although it did for Virginia Tech last year — but an ACC team that knocks out a few contenders and ruins the seasons of a few others can make for a more entertaining week than a much-anticipated battle of top-10 teams on Friday or Saturday night.
N.C. State did it in 1997 and 2007. Maryland did it in 2004. North Carolina did it in 2015, and the Hokies did it last year, rolling to the title as the seventh seed while putting what appeared to be yet another nail in the Tar Heels’ season (plot twist!) and denying Mike Krzyzewski an ACC championship in his Duke farewell.
