World Actress

ACC eyes are smiling — as opposed to Irish eyes, which were shut emphatically by 10th-seeded Florida State in one of the more surprising results so far in the 2011 NCAA tournament.

FSU became the third ACC team, of four in the field, to reach this year’s Sweet 16. That is the league’s best showing since 2005, a year before it engorged to its current 12-member configuration. Coincidentally, 2005 was the last time an ACC squad seeded 10th reached the NCAA regional semifinals – N.C. State under Herb Sendek.

Those were the days.

Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish, coached by Mike Brey, the former Duke assistant, were throttled by FSU 71-57 in the third round of the Southwest Regional. Notre Dame, one of 11 Big East clubs in the field, was the only No. 2 seed eliminated so far.

The only No. 1 to fall by the wayside, Pittsburgh, also came from the Big East.

Strikingly, the ACC is the only league to send three teams to the ‘11 regional semifinals.

Back in the nineties — a decade when the Atlantic Coast Conference made a big leap by going from eight to nine teams, and coaching situations were fairly stable at most schools — the league averaged 2.9 teams per Sweet 16. That was nearly 50 percent better than any other league.

From 2000 through 2010, the ACC’s average dropped to 1.9 teams in the Sweet 16, a loss of one entrant per season. This year’s showing is back at 1990s levels. No league experienced so sharp a drop in Sweet 16 participation from the 1990s through 2010 as the ACC. No other league even came close.

The Big East, Big 10, and SEC placed two teams each in the 2011 Sweet 16. Overall the six power conferences supplied 11 of the final 16 entrants, the same as last season.

Looked at the other way, this is the second straight year the non-elite have five teams among the Sweet 16 (31 percent). Extended farther, this is the fifth time in the past six seasons at least one quarter of the regional semifinalists came from what amount to the non-BCS ranks.

It may be just a coincidence, but that period neatly matches the ACC’s overall postseason droop.

This is also the first time since 2006 an ACC team other than Duke or North Carolina got to the Sweet 16. Boston College did it in 2006, its first year as a conference member. FSU is back for the first time since 1993, its second year as an ACC member.