When you talk about MD and its ACC rivalries you need to understand all these so called rivalries are short lived. The Duke-MD. rivalry started in the late 90’s and peaked in 2002. For MD the rivalry has more meaning than to Duke because Blue Devils are always a highly ranked team but you can’t compare it to the NC-Duke rivalry. Whether those teams are good or not so good the rivalry is intense. If Duke dropped out of the top 20 the MD Duke rivalry would suffer greatly.
The intensity of Duke MD in the late 90’s-early 2000’s is equal to the the short lived rivalry of MD-NCST in the David Thompson-Tom McMillen years. MD has never had any real rival in the ACC. MD VA is a border state rivalry but it’s not very intense. UVA-VA Tech is a more intense rivalry. MD-West Virginia is more intense than the Terps and Cavs. As for Miami, they have strong in state rivals with FL ST and FL. and as to Miami caring about where the ACC tourney or ACC football championship is played, you have to understand Miami doesn’t have a lot of passionate fans. They don’t have many fans at all. USC may be the only university located in a major city with a passionate fan base and remember there isn’t a pro football team in L.A. As far as players relating or not relating to the program, players relate to their school first and foremost.
ACC basketball was much stronger 10 years ago 20 years ago 30-40 years ago so games years ago took on more meaning than games today. ACC basketball is far from the best today and ACC football despite adding VA Tech, Miami, FL ST. is lousy. ACC football has never been very strong historically. Everyone knows the ACC was and is still considered a basketball conference. It’s highly unlikely ACC football will ever be on par with the Big 10 and currently the Big 10 is a superior basketball conference. MD has always been an outsider in the ACC despite being a founding member of the conference. For many years the Balt-Wash sports writers didn’t even participate in media voting because of the absurd “North Carolina” media bias.
MD Penn ST will become a strong rivalry in football providing MD can actually win a few games from the Nittney Lions and I can see MD Mich ST.and MD Indiana becoming good rivalries in basketball. You would never call MD-Wake, MD-Miami, MD VA Tech, the upcoming MD Pitt or MD Clemson a rivalry in any sport. MD moving to the Big 10 is about money but not just about money for athletics, but for research as well. The Big 10 has the CIC, an organization which provides billions of dollars in grants that goes to Big 10 schools. MD fits the profile of a Big Ten school. Strong academic public university heavy into research. Got news for you Brian when FL ST, Miami and VA Tech moved to the ACC is was all about money. And Pitt, Syracuse and Louisville moving to the ACC is all about money and those 3 schools don’t fit academically compared to most schools in the ACC. They fit because they have football teams and the it’s all about tv money for football. Today’s and tomorrow’s ACC isn’t anything like the ACC of the 60’s-70’s and 80’s and it never will be. And, with the addition of Miami, FL ST, VA Tech, Louisville, Pitt and Syracuse the tradition of the ACC is diminished because of so many new members. You need a long history to establish real tradition and you can’t have that with so many new members.
brian2580
You may be surprised to hear that I’m actually in favor of the move to the Big 10 and agree with much of what you’ve said above. My point was that the move is 100% driven by $ and all shots at MD related to disregard for tradition are valid. When MD fans try to justify the move by blaming the ACC it sounds childish and petty. Accept it for what it is.
I think most fans view the move as bittersweet rather than the good riddance ACC message we’re constantly getting from Bruce. I, like most basketball fans, am going to miss the annual games with Duke and UNC it doesn’t matter that they mean more to MD than to those schools, that will be the case with every Big 10 rival as well.
As you say, you need a history to establish real tradition and it’s going to take some time for MD to develop its Big 10 history. Hopefully I’m still around to see it.
· 11/12/2019
freddy from boca
i don’t blame the acc for md moving on. and if acc basketball and football were of better quality i’m sure i’d miss the conference more than i’m going to. i never thought md was an “insider” in the acc like the carolina schools but it didn’t bother me that much. i’ve followed md and the acc since the days of jerry greenspan, lee dedmon, bob verga, dick shiner and gary collins so you get used to the tourney being played in the so called neutral court of greensboro and the media bias. honestly the tourney should be played every year in atlanta because the dome has far more seats available and atlanta is the easiest of any acc city to get to. i’ll miss md duke and md carolina but in a couple years coach k will leave and no one knows what will happen to the duke program at that point. same with nc and williams. you saw what happened when matt doherty went to nc. when word got out of a possible move to the big 10 for md a couple of yrs ago i immediately liked the idea. my guess is espn will schedule md duke in the next couple of yrs in the big 10 acc challenge.
· 11/12/2019