If playing in the ACC was so tough, there would be regular occurrences of coaches leaving ACC schools to go to other schools.

Instead, since the ACCs inception when they immediately became the premiere basketball league in the country, there have been TWO coaches leave ACC schools on their own volition to coach elsewhere. And both of those occurrences were clearly based on other factors.

Rick Barnes left Clemson after four years (3 NCAA appearances) for Texas in 1998 at a time when Clemson’s athletic department was a wreck and Texas’ was becoming the richest and best run athletic program in the country. He took Texas to the NCAAs 16 of 17 years, 1 final four and two other Elite8s.

Jaime Dixon left Pitt to go to his alma mater, TCU, as they built a new stadium and dumped a bunch of money into their basketball program.

(Edit: Did Herb Sendak leave NCSU before they fired him? Maybe he did, but he wasn’t long for Raleigh at that point)

If your premise was accurate, then Hamilton, Bennett, Drissell, Holland, Cremins, Prosser, Valvano, Boeheim, Pitino, etc would have left to get away from Duke and UNC. But that didn’t happen for two reasons: 1. You win a NCAA title by your bracket, your conference doesn’t matter; 2. The benefit of being in the ACC for recruiting is far more valuable than the detriment of competition.

Buzz will likely leave, but he’s not running away from the ACC. The SEC basketball is strengthening quickly and will likely be a close 2nd to the ACC the next 5-10 years. Buzz will leave to go home, to double his salary, to seek a new challenge. Those are all valid reasons to leave. We should thank him and use our new found potential as an ACC competitor and go get another very good coach.