Atlantic Coast Conference moves to head of class

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
OK, so maybe you won't see the flair of a Phil Ford. Or the shooting touch of a Mark Price.
You will see plenty of guys who want to "Be Like Mike," but they all seem to come up short.
Otherwise, it's tough to say anything negative about Atlantic Coast Conference basketball. Once considered the king of all conferences, the ACC had arguably been reduced to a common peasant for the past few seasons.
It has certainly stepped up in class right now. Ahead of the Southeastern Conference. Ahead of the Big 12. The ACC has moved to the head of the class.
Can there be any dispute?
Tune in to a big ACC game nowadays, and it feels like you're in a time warp. You keep expecting David Thompson to come off the bench, or Mike Gminski to score off a feed from Jim Spanarkel.
The Atlantic Coast Conference once again is producing the kind of basketball we grew up on, the kind of games that taught us all about rivalries and loyalty and school spirit. Anybody who has followed the ACC, especially the North Carolina-Duke rivalry, knows there's nothing quite like it.
Usually, most college hoop seasons don't really heat up until January, during the meat of the conference schedules.
But the ACC has been one hot commodity so far. After the season's first month, the collective record of the ACC's nine teams is 64-10.
Georgia Tech (10-0), which hasn't allowed anybody to stay within 13 points, is the surprise of the league. The Yellow Jackets knocked off top-ranked UConn, 77-61, and then buried Bobby Knight's No. 25 Texas Tech team, 85-65.
Maryland also knocked a No. 1 team off its perch, upsetting Florida in overtime, 69-68, a couple of weeks ago in Gainesville.