The ACC has never been 11 deep. And has always been top heavy. How would Duke/Kansas/Ohio St./NC be doing right now if they had to battle their way through the big east regular season/CT, I bet they would be spent, just like Pitt and ND.
Basketball is different than BCS college football. In bball you have a tournament where there arent restrictions for non bcs schools, anyone can win a championship. In football, the SEC dominates not because they have the best talent, but because the system is designed for SEC schools, which in turn leads to them getting the best talent.
The ACC also has never had 16 schools, so we need to look at % of teams making the tourney rather than just the number of teams making the tournament.
This year 11 of 16 BE teams made the tournament. That's 69% of the teams. Of that 11, 2 made the Sweet 16 or just under 20% of the tourney teams with 5 of them losing to teams seeded in the double digits.
The last year before expansion (2004 tournament), 6 of 10 ACC teams made the tourney (i.e., 60%) and 2 of those teams made the Final 4 (GT and Duke). Three teams made the Sweet 16 (that's 50% of their tourney teams) and 0 of them lost to double-digit seeded teams. Only two of the teams were "upset"--#3 NCST losing to #6 Vandy and #4 Maryland losing to #5 Cuse. FSU was arguably a NCAA tourney team that year. If they made it, the ACC would've had 70% of its teams dancing, which would've been a higher % than what the BE had this year. We're talking about 1 team.
However, you overlook the fact that the BE has some truly terrible teams--USF and Depaul. In fact, the 5 teams that didn't make the tourney all had losing records (or 31%). The ACC only had 3 with losing records (or 23%) and only one of those was truly horrible. The other two (GT and NCST) are like the ND football teams at the end of the Weis era--full of talent that doesn't translate into wins.
The ACC doesn't really have any teams that are consistently bad like the BE has. However, most of the teams aren't consistently good or great either. Wake was ranked #1 last year, but were the worst team in the ACC this year (after firing their coach). GT has made the Final 4 this decade (and has been mediocre ever since even with a bunch of McD recruits). NCST was a regular tourney team before they fired their old coach for a guy who recruits McD players only to consistently lose.
Also, since conference quality really isn't as great as you assume with all the bottom-dwellers of the BE, non-conference schedules should come into play some too. The top of the ACC tends to play a more rigorous non-conference schedule. Duke and UNC face some stiff non-conference schedules. Cuse and Pitt are known for their soft non-conference schedules while UConn (usually the best tourney BE team) has a tough non-conference schedule. The only explanation for why these teams consistently win come March is that they have the talent. That's what separates them from their peers who share similar excellent coaching and oftentimes just as tough of schedules.
At the end of the day, the BE has a lot of good teams, but not enough high end talent to make many of those teams great. That's why so many go home early.
