NEW YORK (AP) – Tobacco Road intersects with Flatbush Avenue this week when the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament comes to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
College basketball’s most storied conference begins a two-year run in New York City as the ACC tries to claim some ownership in the country’s largest media market. It will be the first time the ACC Tournament has been played north of the Mason-Dixon Line, though the conference’s ties to New York city run deep – especially at the University of North Carolina.
Tar Heels greats such as Billy Cunningham, Kenny Smith and Charlie Scott, the first black scholarship player at North Carolina, were native New Yorkers, as was Hall of Famer Frank McGuire, the coach who preceded Dean Smith in Chapel Hill.
In the 1990s, Georgia Tech lured star point guard Kenny Anderson from Queens to the ACC and later pulled Stephon Marbury from Brooklyn.
Since the ACC Tournament started in 1954, it has only been held outside of the state of North Carolina 12 times, with Washington the northernmost site. Of course, this ACC looks a lot different from the one Smith coached in for 36 years.