The ACC spent years as the darling conference of men’s college basketball.

It was where the true blue bloods of the sport–led by Duke and North Carolina–resided. Michael Jordan. Christian Laettner. Coach K. The Dean Dome. Jim Valvano.

Tobacco Road.

I can go on, but you get the point.

If a conference ever got the benefit of the doubt on Selection Sunday, it was the ACC.

But that’s all changed in recent years, and you can thank things like weird metrics that have to do with non-conference games played in November and December, Quad wins, and treating momentum at season’s end as if it does not matter.

The big winner on Selection Sunday was the Big 12 (no pun intended), a conference that received eight bids to the 68-team NCAA Tournament this year. By comparison, the ACC received five bids, despite having a 9-3 record vs. the Big 12 during the regular season.

Why? Metrics. But shouldn’t head-to-head have factored into the equation when trying to figure out which teams belonged in the field of 68? Not according to the committee.

At any rate, as we sit here today, just days away from the start of the Sweet 16, which conference has a stronger representation? The ACC, of course. North Carolina (the top seed in the West Region), Duke (the fourth seed in the South Region), Clemson (the sixth seed in the West) and NC State (the 11th seed in the South) are all still alive and well.

The conference went an impressive 8-1 during the first three rounds of the 2024 NCAA Tournament, with only Virginia, a school that was clearly floundering down the stretch of the regular season and the one from the ACC that many believed did not belong, losing in a First Four game–and getting blown out in the process.

While the Sweet 16 is represented by four teams from the ACC, the Big 12, the conference with the impressive metrics, only has two of its eight entrants left.

The Big 10, a conference that received six bids, only has two left.

The Mountain West, a conference which received a puzzling six bids to the tournament, only has one heading to the Sweet 16–San Diego State.

Five of the SEC’s eight teams did not survive past the Round of 32.

Many argued that Pitt and Wake Forest deserved to be in the 68-team tournament. The theory is that NC State, a school that finished 17-14 in the regular season and was the 10th seed in the ACC Tournament, stole the fifth bid by running the table and winning the postseason conference championship. However, you can make a case for the Panthers, who swept the Wolfpack during the regular season and finished in fourth place in the ACC, being one of at least six bids from the conference. You can also argue in favor of the Demon Deacons, who split with both Pitt and NC State during the regular season and finished fifth in the conference, earning a seventh bid. OK, the Panthers defeated Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament in what was described as a defacto elimination game, so six may have been understandable. But only five? Didn’t pass the logic test.

What does the ACC’s strong opening weekend in the 2024 NCAA Tournament tell us? Maybe it tells us that there is more to picking the field of 68 than just metrics that have to do with non-conference games played in November and December.

Maybe logic and the eye test–and not just metrics–should enter into who gets to go dancing in March and who does not.