Five Weeks to Survive: Inside the ACC Gauntlet and Other Conference Races

The game of the year in the ACC could very well be Saturday’s meeting between Duke and host Syracuse.

Unless it’s actually the Orange’s trip to North Carolina next week. Or the Tar Heels’ visit to Notre Dame the week after that.

Such is life in the five-team league, which has crammed all of its conference contests into the last five weeks of the regular season. Duke, North Carolina, Notre Dame and Syracuse enter the weekend a combined 30-3, all well-positioned to land NCAA tournament berths and poised to bolster each other’s postseason resumes simply by taking the field against each other.

(This also represents a tremendous opportunity to 5-4 Virginia, which has a bit more work to do but will have somewhere between four and six chances by the end of the ACC tournament to add high-end victories as part of its NCAA push.)

While a cluster of teams that largely rolled through nonconference play makes it difficult to identify the single best remaining game, the ACC is largely an exception on that front.

In most other conferences, there’s a little more certainty.

America East

Well, maybe not that much more certainty. One possibility is it’s already been played, and UAlbany’s 13-7 defeat of Bryant on March 14 turns out to be the matchup of the league’s top two teams. Only the Great Danes and NJIT remain undefeated in conference play, and they meet in Newark on April 25 to close out the regular season.

Atlantic 10

The stratification of the A-10 is evident just two weeks into the league schedule. Defending champ Richmond (8-0, 2-0) has won its first two conference games by an average of 13 goals. Saint Joseph’s (5-2, 2-0) has done so by an average of 14 goals. They meet April 18 at Richmond. (And don’t sleep on High Point, which joins the Spiders and Hawks in the A-10’s top tier.)

Atlantic Sun

There’s a little bit of guesswork here, since the conference schedule begins Saturday. Utah (5-3) is the only ASUN team above .500, and Jacksonville (4-4) is a regular contender. You could do worse than pick their April 11 meeting in Florida.

Big East

When in doubt, go with Georgetown-Denver. The Hoyas (3-4) head to the Mile High City to face the Pioneers (4-4) in the conference opener for both on Saturday.

Big Ten

It very well may be Penn State’s trip to Ohio State on Saturday. The host Buckeyes (8-1, 1-0) are the conference’s most consistent team to date, while the Nittany Lions (5-3, 1-0) have shown the highest ceiling with victories over Cornell and Princeton. Both still have to deal with an improved Johns Hopkins (6-2, 1-0) in early April.

Coastal

Another notable late-March game as Drexel (6-3, 2-0) plays at Towson (5-3, 1-0) on Saturday. The winner will be the lone remaining undefeated team in the CAA, and the stakes are larger in a conference where the regular-season champ secures conference tournament hosting rights.

Ivy League

It could come down to the final day of the regular season on April 25, when Cornell (5-2, 2-0) plays host to Harvard (8-0, 2-0). The Big Red and the Crimson are the only remaining unbeatens in Ivy play.

Metro Atlantic

This came into focus on Wednesday when Siena picked off Marist in overtime. The defending champion Saints (7-2, 3-0) get Sacred Heart (9-0, 4-0) at home on April 11.

NEC

Long Island (7-1, 2-0) and Robert Morris (7-3, 2-0) sit atop the NEC two weeks into league play, and their April 18 meeting at Bobby Mo could very well decide who has home-field advantage in the conference tournament.

Patriot League

With eight out of nine teams within a game in the loss column in the conference standings, the Patriot is a massive jumble. Perhaps the answer is Boston University’s trip to Loyola on April 4, but the single safest answer is the Army-Navy game in West Point a week later. Maybe it will play a role in sorting out the league title race. Maybe it won’t. Regardless, the academy rivalry game will be the Patriot League contest that commands the most attention over the next month.