Teel: Hit pause on legal strife, revenue gaps to applaud ACC athletes in 2023-24 (2024)

From dominant to dramatic, anticipated to unimaginable, ACC teams in 2023-24 continued a three-year binge of success, the likes of which the conference has never experienced.

So if just for a moment, let’s pause our concerns/obsessions with legal strife and revenue gaps and celebrate the league’s athletes, many (most?) of whom couldn’t care less about court skirmishes and television contracts.

We’ll first dispense with the overview: Seven national team championships in 2023-24 upped the ACC’s three-year aggregate to a Division I-best 23. Moreover, those seven titles came from a conference-record seven schools: Virginia women’s swimming, North Carolina field hockey, Clemson men’s soccer, Florida State women’s soccer, NC State cross country, Notre Dame men’s lacrosse and Boston College women’s lacrosse.

Five of those championships were staged in a tournament format, and in all except men’s lacrosse, ACC teams collided in the semifinals or final — Clemson defeated Notre Dame in an all-ACC men’s soccer title match.

For the third consecutive year, Virginia, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Florida State, Duke and NC State finished among the top 25 in the Directors’ Cup all-sports standings, with the Cavaliers leading the ACC pack at No. 5. Plus, Clemson's No. 31 finish was the school's best in 22 years, its men's basketball Elite Eight the program's first in 44 years.

On to some of the folks who made all this happen.

Transition for the ages

In 2022, Erin Matson punctuated her illustrious playing career with the late goal that lifted North Carolina over Northwestern 2-1 in the NCAA field hockey final. Twelve months later, at age 23, she coached the Tar Heels to their fifth national championship in the past six years, earned in a harrowing penalty shootout versus Northwestern.

Credit UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham for the bold hire. Credit Matson for the moxie to believe she was prepared to succeed Hall of Famer Karen Shelton, and credit Matson’s players for buying into a peer as their head coach.

Echoing Matson’s playing days, Tar Heels sophom*ore Ryleigh Heck not only won national player-of-the-year honors, but also tallied the decisive goal in the shootout against Northwestern.

Four and counting

With a fleet of former, current and future Olympians, Virginia’s fourth consecutive women’s swimming national championship was virtually preordained. But that doesn’t diminish the feat headlined by sisters Gretchen and Alex Walsh.

Indeed, Todd DeSorbo’s program became just the fourth in ACC history and first in more than two decades to earn at least four straight NCAA titles. The others are North Carolina women’s soccer (1986-94), UVa men’s soccer (1991-94) and Maryland women’s lacrosse (1995-2001).

Late escape

Virginia Tech wrestler Caleb Henson overpowered Michigan’s Austin Gomez, a member of Mexico’s 2024 Olympic team, in the 149-pound final at the NCAA championships 15-7, but not before a taut semifinal against top-ranked Ridge Lovett of Nebraska.

Courtesy of an escape with 1:13 remaining, Henson nudged Lovett 1-0. He and Mekhi Lewis (2019 at 165 pounds) are the only Hokies to win an NCAA wrestling title.

Emphatic repeat

The ACC is the premier conference in men’s lacrosse. Notre Dame won the league tournament by outscoring Virginia and Duke by a combined 34-15.

The NCAA men’s lacrosse championship is renowned for tense finals. The Fighting Irish routed Maryland 15-5, the most lopsided title game in 26 years.

Paced by brothers Pat and Chris Kavanagh, Notre Dame also became the first team since Syracuse in 1990 to win each of its NCAA tournament contests by at least five goals, that nugget courtesy of lacrosse sage Patrick Stevens.

Kevin Corrigan coached the Irish for 35 years before they won their first national championship in 2023. Now they've won two straight.

Pack of wolves

If any ACC coach or administrator had a better year than Corrigan, it’s his younger brother Boo, the athletic director at NC State.

The Wolfpack won their third consecutive women’s cross country national title in November, finished No. 21 in the Associated Press football poll, advanced to the men’s and women’s basketball Final Fours and reached baseball’s College World Series.

In so doing, NC State joined Texas 2003 and Louisville 2013 as the only schools to make both basketball Final Fours and the CWS in the same year. The men’s Final Four run, ignited by an unprecedented five victories in as many days at the ACC tournament, was especially storybook and made the ever-affable DJ Burns a cult hero.

At No. 21, the Wolfpack finished among the top 25 in the Directors’ Cup standings for the fifth time in the past six years. They had never placed in the top 25 previously.

Conference champs

North Carolina (six) and NC State (five) led the parade of a dozen schools that claimed ACC titles. Florida State followed with four, Duke and Notre Dame three each, Virginia two, and Virginia Tech, Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt, Clemson and Wake Forest one apiece.

FSU won the most-coveted championship, football, and became the first ACC team since Clemson in 2019 to enter the bowl season undefeated. Alas, using quarterback Jordan Travis’ year-ending injury as justification, the College Football Playoff snubbed the Seminoles.

Crazy comebacks

Competing in a seventh straight NCAA women’s lacrosse final, Boston College rallied from a 6-0, first-quarter deficit to edge Northwestern 14-13. Kayla Martello (five goals) and Rachel Clark (two goals, four assists) led the comeback.

In front of the first regular-season sellout in program history, Virginia Tech emerged from an 11-point, fourth-quarter hole to defeat No. 3 NC State 63-62. Elizabeth Kitley’s last-second bucket off a thread-the-needle inbounds pass from Georgia Amoore capped the rally.

After a second-day 77 left him seven shots off the lead, Georgia Tech’s Hiroshi Tai carded rounds of 70 and 71 to win the NCAA men’s golf individual title. He edged six players by a stroke, including Virginia’s Ben James.

Luminaries to win the NCAA include Hale Irwin, Curtis Strange, Ben Crenshaw, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Bryson DeChambeau.

But no ACC comeback in 2023-24 surpasses UVa’s Shane Cohen at the NCAA track meet in early June. Last among nine runners in the 800 meters, Cohen, a transfer from Division II Tampa, unleashed a furious kick with about 110 meters to go, accelerating past the entire field to win.

'Twas among the final, and most enduring, of the ACC's myriad peaks.