When I put on my basketball hat, I definitely agree. There is strong gravitational force within the ACC, centered in Carolina, focused on basketball. When I lived in RTP, ACC basketball was like a religious cult. Everybody knew every player on every team. Football was casual, basketball was dead serious business. When I moved back to Atlanta, it never felt the same, even when we had a good team.
What’s changed over the years is how the football arms race has gotten so absurdly expensive. The ACC could historically be a top (sometimes the top) basketball conference with decent to very good football, but keeping up football now is harder, more expensive.