Years before the Atlantic Coast Conference began one of its most challenging seasons, longtime Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim could sense turbulence ahead for the league.
Over his 47-year run with the Orange, he had seen it all. But the dawning of the name, image and likeness and transfer portal era was rapidly changing the game of college basketball.
"As soon as this started, you could see that this [was] just going to escalate," Boeheim, now a TV analyst, told ESPN.
Ahead of this week's conference championship, Joe Lunardi's latest Bracketology projects the ACC to receive only three bids for the men's NCAA tournament on Selection Sunday. That would be its lowest tally in 25 years and a far cry from its record-tying nine berths in 2018.
NIL rules and the transfer portal have destabilized collegiate sports, creating a lack of continuity that has impacted programs around the country. The ACC's current state is as much the result of its collective financial commitment relative to other power conferences as it is a reflection of grappling with its identity, as teams that once thrived off their traditions and brands try to reinvent themselves.
The level of stability across the conference has also been impacted by heavy turnover among its men's basketball coaches.
Once the home of stalwarts like Boeheim, Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski and Tony Bennett, the ACC's ranks look much different now. Next season, Clemson's Brad Brownell -- who joined the Tigers in 2010 -- will be the ACC's most tenured coach following the pending departure of Florida State's Leonard Hamilton. Coupled with NC State's firing of Kevin Keatts on Sunday, only three of the 15 head coaches who led ACC programs during the 2019-20 season will guide their teams in this week's conference tournament.
The ACC is, by all accounts, a conference in flux -- which commissioner Jim Phillips insists isn't a bad thing.
"ACC men's basketball has been the gold standard for more than 70 years," Phillips told ESPN, "and we are proud of the players and coaches who have built this incredible legacy.
"[And] as we look ahead, I'm enthusiastic about the talented coaches we have in our league and I'm confident in our schools that are in the process of hiring as well. It is clear from our league conversations that men's basketball remains a priority. Our schools are dedicated in this new modernization of college athletics to devote resources to ensure we are competing at the highest level."
That will require a significant shift.
Once NIL rules passed in 2021, the ACC was not quick to embrace the new era the way other power conferences did.
According to Opendorse, the ACC's top 10 men's basketball players in NIL earnings in January 2024 made less than their peers in the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC. In fact, the ACC's top 10 made less than half of what the Big 12's top 10 made at the time.
Boeheim said that gap was the result of the ACC's slow acknowledgment of NIL's power and the speed at which the climate changed. During the first year of NIL rules, he said he raised more than $1 million -- enough to prevent some of his players from transferring but not enough to add top talent through the portal.
As the NIL market exploded the following year, Boeheim said $1 million was insignificant to build a team, impacting teams like his that couldn't keep up. In his final three seasons before he retired in 2023, Boeheim failed to win 20 games.
"I think for most ACC schools ... we never spent any money," Boeheim said. "We never raised any money. We won games and our programs made money, so we didn't go out to people and try to raise money.
"Southern schools have always raised money. They always had athletic money, beautiful big facilities. So they were used to the money thing. I don't think it was a problem for them.
"It has been a problem in the ACC."
As Boeheim suggests, it hasn't been a problem in the SEC.
As Selection Sunday approaches, the SEC is primed to break the Big East's record of 11 NCAA tournament bids (2010-11) with 13 projected berths in Lunardi's most recent Bracketology. Texas enters this week's conference tournament on the bubble with a chance to secure a 14th invitation.
The SEC's investments have paid off.
Half of the 12 highest-paid coaches in college basketball, according to USA Today, were in the SEC last season. Additional proof of its commitment to funding NIL: One-third of the top 100 transfers in ESPN's transfer rankings for the 2024-25 season picked SEC schools.
"Athletes in our dataset who have transferred, they make five times more than athletes [who] don't -- on average," Opendorse's CEO Blake Lawrence told ESPN.
What the SEC has accomplished is proof that money arguably matters more now than ever before. And that has been one of the major challenges for the ACC.
Per USA Today, Virginia ($161 million) had the 14th-largest athletic budget in the nation -- and highest in the ACC -- last year. The Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC owned the top 10 spots, topped by Ohio State's $252 million athletic budget.
But next year, once revenue-sharing rules are implemented, that could all change.
According to Opendorse, the ACC is set to spend more per school on men's basketball ($4.4 million) than any conference other than the Big East ($5.3 million). Once official, those rules will allow schools to commit an annual cap of nearly $20 million to their athletes (though each conference can decide on the amount of cash it wants to allot each sport).
Based on that reported financial commitment, the ACC seems serious about regaining its perch in men's basketball.
While the collectives will still work to offer athletes money beyond the cap in the years ahead, they could -- in theory -- be restricted due to fair market value rules on NIL deals. While a player can collect $100,000 in a deal after two promotional appearances in the current landscape, the NCAA intends to cut down on pay-for-play transactions outside the revenue-sharing mechanism. How effective the NCAA will be in that mission remains to be seen, though, as it has failed to effectively monitor NIL transactions and deals over the first four years of NIL legislation.
"If there are fair market value checks and the enforcement entity has teeth," Lawrence said, "then providing athletes significant dollars outside of the cap is going to be difficult."
As ACC schools have suffered without an NIL gold mine, they've discovered the diminishing value of their respective legacies when it comes to recruiting new talent.
This past offseason, North Carolina -- which ESPN Analytics' forecast model gives only a 37% chance to avoid missing the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years -- struggled to boost its post presence. The Tar Heels have always been a destination for elite big men like Armando Bacot, but the program did not land a player of that caliber in the paint for this season.
North Carolina isn't alone. According to ESPN's 2024-25 transfer rankings, the ACC signed just four of the top 60 available transfers. And if you exclude UNC and Duke (which combined for eight), only three of the top 50 high school players in ESPN's ranking of the 2024 class signed with ACC schools prior to this season.
The struggle to retain and add talent to compete with the best schools in America might have impacted a rocky nonconference season for the ACC, which in turn affected the number of teams that will hear their names called on Selection Sunday.
Last season, Keatts earned a multiyear extension after he led NC State to the Final Four in a spectacular run punctuated by an ACC tournament championship and an Elite Eight win over Duke. This season, however, he coached the Wolfpack to a sub-.500 campaign. Before he was ultimately fired after the regular-season finale, Keatts said NIL challenges impacted his ability to build on last season's momentum.
"I get the question all the time of why didn't we capitalize [on the Final Four run]," Keatts told ESPN before his dismissal. "NIL has been tough here at NC State. I think it will get better once we get to revenue sharing and it's more in-house and we can dictate where the money goes."
Revenue sharing could level the playing field across men's college basketball and open the door for the ACC to rise within the sport again. But the new $20 million allotment will mean that schools will have to hit some of the same boosters and supporters they tapped for NIL, so the emphasis on courting a greater investment remains.
Boeheim sees this as just another evolution for the conference, one he saw many of during his nearly five-decade career.
"We didn't get top players when I started at Syracuse, but we got the right guys and they were able to win, and then we were able to get better players," Boeheim said. "So I think the same thing applies now for going forward.
"You've got to try to put the right collection of players together. And I think we can do it for a reasonable amount of money. But you can't do it for no money."
Jeff Capel understands the concerns about an ACC that is trending toward one of its worst years -- he has experienced the highs and lows of the conference as a player, assistant and now, head coach at Pittsburgh. Just two years after his squad reached the second round of the NCAA tournament, it is now among the many teams that will need a miracle in the ACC tournament to earn an invitation to the Big Dance this year.
The criticism, Capel said, is valid. But the future of ACC men's basketball should be the focus.
"We have to take a look at what we collectively have to do as a league and that's everyone," Capel said. "That's programs, coaches from the programs, athletic directors, presidents ... everything that we can do to help make this league better."
Early signs do point to better days in the future.
According to Opendorse, the ACC's top 10 men's basketball players are now third in expected NIL income ($698,000) compared to other power conferences, which have also made moves to elevate their respective ceilings.
On the recruiting side, the No. 3 (Cameron Boozer), No. 7 (Caleb Wilson) and No. 8 (Mikel Brown Jr.) prospects in ESPN's top 100 rankings for the 2025 class all will join the conference next season.
And there's an infusion of youth in the coaching ranks: In his first season with the program, Louisville's Pat Kelsey is poised to lead the Cardinals back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2019. And next season, Duke associate head coach Jai Lucas -- who has helped the Blue Devils, Texas and Kentucky build teams over the past decade -- will take over the helm in Miami.
The next step? Once the transfer portal opens March 24, these new leaders will have to convince a fleet of talent to choose the ACC.
For now, the conference's leaders and supporters view this season as one of transition. They are also quick to remind of the conference's past postseason success: The ACC has won one-third of the past decade's national championships. It also produced nine of the past 36 Final Four teams.
That's the true barometer of the league, according to one of its veteran leaders.
"They don't understand that we're improving and when we're playing each other and we're beating up on each other, that's because the league has gotten better. And I think you're always going to see, at the end of the year, once our teams get into the NCAA tournament, they give a full account of themselves," Florida State's Hamilton said.
"But none of that is emphasized during the course of the year. We listen to that and we don't necessarily feel like we have to defend ourselves because, what do they say, 'The proof is in the pudding.' Every year, we're standing tall at the end of the season."
