ACC returns to Brooklyn, not its typically strong self

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The Atlantic Coast Conference returns to Brooklyn this week, not quite the college basketball powerhouse it has historically been.

The ACC Tournament starts Tuesday at Barclays Center, with just two teams ranked in the latest AP Top 25. No. 7 Duke is the top seed heading into the most tradition-rich of the conference tournaments.

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The Blue Devils (26-5) will look to give Mike Krzyzewski his 16th championship in the retiring coach's final conference tournament and bolster their case for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA field. Meanwhile, the rest of the ACC's top teams are just trying to make sure they don't end up on the wrong side of the bubble.

"The marathon is now over," Miami coach Jim Larranaga said this past weekend after the Hurricanes ended the regular season by beating Syracuse. "Now the sprints begin."

The championship game is Saturday night, the day before Selection Sunday.

The last time an ACC Tournament started with two or fewer ranked teams was 2013.

Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, the ACC has never had fewer than three teams in the bracket. The last time the ACC placed only three teams in the NCAA Tournament was 2000.

The ACC was only a nine-school conference then. Since the conference expanded in 2004, the ACC has never had fewer than four teams receive NCAA bids. And since expanding to 15 in 2013-14, six is the fewest NCAA bids the ACC has received.

But this season, everything is going to have to break perfectly in Brooklyn and around the country for the ACC to get more than four schools in the 68-team men's field.

North Carolina guard R.J. Davis (4) drives