Flexing Its Muscles

AFTER DUKE crushed LSU and two-time national player of the year Seimone Augustus 64-45 in a national semifinal in Boston on Sunday night, Alison Bales , the Blue Devils' 6'7" junior center, explained why it had looked so easy. "We had a good game plan, and playing in the ACC prepares you for just about anything," she said. "The fact that three of the four teams here are from the ACC speaks for itself."

In the earlier semifinal Maryland --a team that started two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior and had the classic ACC makeup of quick, long-armed guards, and post players who can run and handle the ball--knocked off overall No. 1 seed North Carolina 81-70, its second victory over the Tar Heels this season. The Maryland-Duke matchup in Tuesday's final guaranteed that the national champion in women's basketball would come from the ACC for the first time since 1994, when North Carolina won the league's only other title.

Of course, the odds of an ACC school's winning the national championship this year could hardly have been better. This was the first time three teams from one conference made the Women's Final Four (it has happened just once in the men's tournament, in 1985, with the Big East 's St. John's, Georgetown and eventual champ Villanova ), but the Beantown staging of what Maryland coach Brenda Frese called "the ACC tournament, Part 2" was no surprise. For the second straight season the ACC had the nation's highest conference RPI and landed seven teams in the NCAAs . The last of those clubs, ACC newcomer Boston College , finished the league schedule 6-8 but justified its surprise NCAA bid by beating Notre Dame and upsetting No. 1 seed Ohio State before losing a nail-biter to Utah .

How did the ACC , historically a one- or two-horse conference in women's hoops- N.C. State in the '80s, Virginia and Maryland in the late '80s and early '90s, Duke in the last five years or so-become so deep? A commitment from athletic directors to upgrade facilities and hire first-rate coaches helped. So did the arrival of Frese , who left Minnesota in 2002 to take over the foundering program in College Park . A quick glance at Maryland 's roster reveals Frese 's imprint: Six of the Terrapins ' top seven scorers are freshmen or sophomores, including forward Crystal Langhorne , who had two 30-point games in the NCAAs , and point guard Kristi Toliver .

"Brenda's coming to Maryland has made us all better," says Duke coach Gail Goestenkors. "A couple of years ago we at Duke were recruiting against Connecticut and Tennessee ; we weren't recruiting against the ACC . Now we are. I think we raised the recruiting bar, and now everyone has stepped up. Now we all have better teams."

Don't expect a drop-off anytime soon. Among the league's three Final Four participants, there were just four senior starters. Several other clubs, including N.C. State , Virginia Tech and Florida State , are young and on the rise. Hard as it is to imagine, says North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell , "the ACC women may be even better next year."