A year ago, the ACC's big three of Duke, Maryland and North Carolina breezed by the rest of the league. The three teams only lost to each another.
Fast forward a year, and the tide is turning in the ACC.
Five teams from the conference have been ranked in the top 25 since the fifth week of the season, and upsets have been commonplace. And as the ACC Tournament begins, for once, more than three have a viable shot at the crown.
"It's a remarkable thing to see all the schools, everybody, just everybody, be better," Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "Any game we take on this year, it just seems like everybody is better in certain ways. I think the conference is remarkable that way. It is very different from last year. There was such a break last year. There were so many times when the games were not as challenging. Not at all the case this year. The parity has been fantastic."
Virginia, which produced two All-ACC first-teamers in Monica Wright and Lyndra Littles, started the season off on a high note for the league by upsetting defending national champion Tennessee 83-82 in its second game. Since then, members of the ACC have beaten seven ranked teams out of conference, including the current No. 2 and No. 3 teams in the country, Stanford and Oklahoma.
And that high level of competition has carried over into league play.
The usual suspects have maintained their consistency. Maryland won the conference crown as seniors Kristi Toliver and Marissa Coleman-both of whom garnered All-ACC first team honors-have the Terrapins on track to potentially capture their second national championship in four years. Four-time defending conference champion North Carolina faltered after graduating its starting frontcourt of Erlana Larkins and LaToya Pringle, but the team still features the league's deadliest offense at 83.5 points per game.
Chief among the new contenders for the tournament title is Florida State, which made its claim as the newest ACC powerhouse by knocking off the Tar Heels and the Blue Devils during the regular season. Led by All-ACC guard Mara Freshour, the Seminoles earned a share of the conference title with Maryland a year after finishing sixth in the 12-team league.
"They are interesting," McCallie said of the Seminoles. "To be quite frank with you, they remind me of my Final Four team [Michigan State in 2005].. I think they are a very extraordinary team."
Georgia Tech and Boston College have also become forces to be reckoned with. The Yellow Jackets snapped North Carolina's 23-game win streak against ACC opponents Jan. 22, and the Eagles upset then-No. 24 Texas Christian, a team that had previously defeated Maryland.
Senior guard Abby Waner attributed the growing number of contenders to a trend throughout women's basketball of recruits choosing schools with less name recognition.
"It's just like a sample of women's basketball as a whole, that there's just a lot more parity," Waner said. "It's becoming more enticing to women's players to go to a program that hasn't yet been established.. Especially with what Florida State did this year, I think you're going to see even more parity in the ACC next year."
Which means that come March 8, for the first time in five years, a team other than North Carolina may very well be cutting down the nets in Greensboro.
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