The ACC finds itself in a far different position today than seven years ago when the league was at the forefront of the latest expansion wave.

This year, the Pac-10, Big 10 and Big 12 are in major play with a number of scenarios possible. The Pac-10 is poised to add between two and six teams, poaching from the Big 12. Nebraska and Missouri seem destined to join the Big 10, maybe by the end of the week.

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe must feel like his league is so much sand running through his fingers. It’s disintegrating before our eyes.

Meanwhile, John Swofford is forced to be a bit player in this latest high-stakes game. The ACC simply can’t match the massive TV revenues of the current SEC or expanded Pac-10 and Big 10. While the Big Ten Network has a high ceiling for growth depending upon which markets it adds, the ACC’s TV contract with ESPN/ABC doesn’t allow it to immediately profit from new markets.

One possibility for the ACC would be to head north and pick up a couple of Big East leftovers if that league is raided by the Big 10. Given the revenue disparity, there’s no chance any SEC teams would consider joining the ACC.

John Wooden’s phone number is still listed, and you can easily find it on whitepages.com. In an age where sports figures are increasingly remote, the fact that anyone, at any time, can call the legendary UCLA coach is amazing.

The news that Wooden, 99, is gravely ill reminds us an era is closing.

Longtime ACC basketball fans loathed and respected Wooden, who dominated college basketball through 1975. If you followed the sport then, you feared the man with the rolled-up program and old-school discipline.

N.C. State’s monumental victory over UCLA in the 1974 national semifinals – the Pack won the championship two nights later, against Marquette – remains one of the epic games in collegiate history. Wooden retired after winning the 1975 title.

I had a chance to speak with him once. I was stunned when I called and he answered the phone, taking time to talk to a young News & Observer reporter. He patiently answered my questions on college basketball, and we veered off into talk about that 1974 season.

Wooden, in a soft deep voice grown richer with age, spoke of how much he admired that N.C. State team. In basketball, he said, you need quickness and balance. And N.C. State had both.

But what I remembered from that conversation was not what he said about N.C. State, but how he related basketball to life.

In life, he said, you need love and balance. Those words came through the phone with grace and clarity and I knew that even though I was a random reporter who happened to call when he was home, he was still coaching, still teaching, still doing what he loved.

I’m not sure if today’s athletes are more wide open than athletes of yesterday but the Internet certainly exposes them more – so to speak.

NC State softballer Lauren Peters (pictured right) made frathousesports.com’s All Hot Team and was featured in a seven-picture layout online where she shows a lot of skin. The reserve outfielder finished the season for the 28-27 Wolfpack batting only .154 but she did have 33 putouts.

Meanwhile, UNC coach Roy Williams told his players, particularly Dexter Strickland, John Henson and Larry Drew Two, to tone it down with the online Tweets. He met with the team earlier this week to give them guidelines on what not to write on Twitter. The players’ Tweets certainly personalize the team but the Tweets can also be embarrassing, inappropriate and provide fodder for opponents and opponents’ fans.

Apparently, the last straw for Williams came when several of the players took part in a jokefest about why the Wear twins left the Carolina program. Williams himself Tweets but very rarely. Since January, Williams has posted four Tweets totalling just more than 80 words.

After the meeting with Williams, Henson – whose dirty-dancing with bikini-wearing babes pictures made the rounds on the Internet recently – and Strickland released a Tweet which read, “Well, coached (sic) just talked to us about twitter and told us we offend some people n what not so this is a farewell to bein’ myself.” Then, they wrote, “Yeah these people be emailin coach n stuff smh….self expression is a birthright and something you did PRIOR to hoopin…” Sounds a little bitter and snarly, not to mention the spelling and grammar errors.

Maybe they should be schooled in how to communicate as much as what they communicate.

Roy Williams had success recruiting in California as the head coach at Kansas, and he has continued to mine that state since coming to North Carolina. In fact, Williams had four Californians on his roster last season.

But the transfer of the Wear twins is a reminder that bringing kids from across the country can be risky, especially in an era where players are less loyal than before. The Wears are transferring to UCLA, they announced Tuesday, to be back in their home state. Williams also had another Californian return home when Alex Stepheson left for Southern Cal after the 2008 season.

Stepheson and the Wears weren’t great players at UNC, but the moves are a reminder that it can be tough for kids to adjust to being 2,500 miles from home. And Carolina has had to scramble for bodies with the Wears leaving, a move Williams said caught him totally off-guard.

UNC had rarely signed Californians before Williams arrived, with center Scott Williams of Hacienda Heights being one of the few exceptions.

Duke, too, had Los Angeles product Jamal Boykin depart for California.