By Barry Svrluga, Washington Post originally published Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page E03

Back in the doldrums of 1999 and 2000, when the ACC still boasted about its basketball tradition yet only sent three teams to the NCAA tournament each year, there was concern. From the outside, the conference looked like it might be slipping. But the coaches argued that the league was so tough, teams just beat up on each other, and everyone ended up looking mediocre.

Whatever the theory back then, things have changed. Tonight, when the ACC season begins in earnest -- Maryland plays at Florida State, Virginia travels to North Carolina State -- there are few of those worries. The conference, as a whole, could hardly have been more impressive thus far, winning 67 of 77 nonconference games, going 7-4 against ranked opponents, beating two No. 1 teams, winning seven of nine games in the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge, which wasn't much of a challenge.

Want more? Three ACC teams are still undefeated, four are ranked in the top 10, five in the top 25.

Put that early-season run -- including Georgia Tech's victory over top-ranked Connecticut and Maryland's win at then-No. 1 Florida -- up against any in the past, and it seems to hold up.

"That doesn't happen in December very often," Maryland Coach Gary Williams said. "Just look at the records. Georgia Tech's undefeated. Florida State [has one loss]. Virginia hasn't lost. So here we go."

Couple the records with last Saturday's Wake Forest-North Carolina conference opener -- a triple-overtime classic won by the Demon Deacons -- and the tone has been set. Starting tonight, anything can happen.

If third-ranked Duke wins the regular season championship, few would be surprised. If undefeated and eighth-ranked Wake defends its title from last season, that would seem appropriate. Georgia Tech -- unranked and overlooked in the preseason but now 11-0, matching the best start in school history -- just might have the talent and experience to continue that kind of performance in conference play.

Just try to figure out who's the favorite. Go ahead. Try.

"It's always been a very good league, even when everybody was criticizing us," said Virginia Coach Pete Gillen, in his sixth year with the Cavaliers (8-0). "Now, I think it's a phenomenal conference. That's been proved by our teams winning outside [the league], playing against good teams and winning. I think it's the best since I've been in it. I think this is definitely the deepest, and the most talented teams, we've had. It shows nationally. Four teams in the top 10? That's unbelievable."

Maryland's game at Florida State this evening is perhaps the best example of the league's apparent strength. In the past, a game at Tallahassee was one of the few breathers the conference provided. Now? The Seminoles (10-1) had their best start ever, have lost only at No. 16 Pittsburgh, start four seniors and have a talented bench. Not the kind of cupcake the Terrapins might have ordered for holiday dessert.

"There's no doormats in the ACC," Maryland point guard John Gilchrist said.

The Terps included. Williams hasn't had a team like this -- with four sophomores and two freshmen in the top seven of the rotation -- since the early 1990s, when he was just starting to rebuild the Maryland program, and it was easy to forget about the Terps before the season.

Not now. Maryland beat Wisconsin and Florida, lost to Gonzaga and West Virginia, all while getting a taste of what league play might be like.

"We're as ready as anybody else," Williams said. "We've played enough good teams. We've certainly been through it. You play ranked teams, and hopefully, that helps you. That's why you play them. You can schedule differently, but we took on the challenge to play three ranked teams. We'll go play now, and see if that helped us."

Not all ACC teams can make that claim. Virginia, for instance, has played only two teams -- Virginia Tech and Minnesota -- from power conferences, beating both in Charlottesville. N.C. State lost its only two games against such teams, at both Michigan and South Carolina. And Clemson (6-4) -- with no quality wins and losses to Purdue, South Carolina, Georgia and Cincinnati -- isn't helping Gilchrist's "no doormats" claim.

Still, the Terps' overtime loss to West Virginia and the two losses to South Carolina -- by Clemson and N.C. State -- are the ACC's only losses to teams outside the top 60 in the latest Ratings Percentage Index rankings, which factor in strength of schedule. The ACC's collective RPI ranks well ahead of the SEC and Big East, which sit second and third, respectively.

"I think they're going to take six teams into the NCAA tournament," Gillen said. "I think that's very plausible. Our job is to try to be one of those six. It's not going to be easy."

Florida State, in its second year under Coach Leonard Hamilton, could be talented enough to get there. N.C. State has one of the league's best players in swingman Julius Hodge, and is coming off back-to-back tournament appearances. Virginia has faded during the conference season in the past, but Gillen claims this year's team is different.

There's little reason to think North Carolina -- on a two-year hiatus from the tournament -- won't be back. Wake Forest, deep and talented, and Duke (see Wake) are virtual locks. Georgia Tech's non-conference romp is solid enough that going 8-8 in league play would almost certainly give the Yellow Jackets 20 wins and an invitation. Maryland -- likely to get better rather than worse -- has been to 10 straight tournaments. Leaving the Terps out of the field, barring an unforeseen disaster, would seem difficult.

That makes eight teams with what would seem like a very legitimate chance. No league has ever received that many bids, and the ACC -- with just nine teams -- is ill-suited to become the first. Figuring out which teams will be in, which will be out, which will be happy and which will be crushed could be more fun than it has been in years.

"Obviously, there's not just one good team in the league," Williams said. "You don't know what to expect."

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