Tuesday was Tuesday that his 18 team male basketball conference is playing a 18 -game league calendar.
The conference had played a 20-game league calendar since the 2019-20 season, a movement that seemed to stay after last year’s additions of SMU, Stanford and California. And yet, here we are.
Where we are unknown territory for the ACC.
While the Big Ten enjoy record levels of success, access, access placed more than five teams in an NCAA Sincere 2021 tournament. If it were not for the highly controversial inclusion of North Carolina in the first four in the Gondamento teams in the Great Dance for the first time since 2000.
In a league in which basketball typically King King, behind the other four power conferences for more than a unique season is the cause of a radical change.
And so, again, here we are.
The most surprising part of Tuesday’s announcement was not reversal, it was the structure of the reversion.
Instead of following the format that the majority believed would be adopted, each team that plays 16 opponents once and an opponent twice, the ACC announced that from 2025-26, each team will play 14 teams once, two teams twice and a team no.
The house and house games will be or two different varieties. Each team will play two games against a “main partner” every season, and two games against a “variable partner” that will change from one season to the next.
The list of “main partners” is as follows:
Boston College-NoTre Dame
Clemson-Georgia Tech
California-Stanford
Duke-North Carolina
Florida State-Miami
Louisville-Smu
NC State-Wake Forest
Pitt-Syracuse
Virginia Tech-Virginia
The justification here is solid: it gives the League the opportunity to face its strongest teams projected to each other for an additional quality confrontation each season, while preserving the holiness of the strongest rivalries of the conference.
What the ACC hopes to avoid is a situation like last year in which a Duke team that ended 19-1 in the League and a Louisville team that ended 18-2 played his only game in Dec. 8 to the small fanfare. Having two teams-Clemsson and Louisville-Finish 18-2 in the League game and win only one number 5 and a seed No. 8, respectively, is another thing that Jim Phillips and the company would like to avoid moving forward.
In general, the movement feels like treating a virus that quickly spreads with ibuprofen. Could there be some positive effects? Of course, but this is not a reaction that addresses the root cause of the problem in any substantive way.
Each collection team that obtains two additional games that are not with the conference won a lot if the League is still absolutely erased by the other power conferences in November and December.
The ACCS 18 teams use a 331-270 collective in the non -conference game last season, the seventh best mark of the 31 leagues in division I. The League also had a sub -.500 record against the 100 best opponents for the fourth consecutive season. Perhaps more markedly, the conference was only 4-30 in games against the opponents of the SEC, including a humiliating performance of 2-14 in the annual ACC-SEC challenge.
The lack of quality victories combined with a multitude of shameful losses left Duke almost without a margin of error to be a number 1 seed, and teams like Clemson and Louisville almost without margin of error only to enter the NCAA tournament.
A change in programming philosophy will not solve that.
In an era in which Bratter finances even more than they have never had before, no one should surprise that the two leagues with the greatest amount of money are the two that currently experience most of the court. The SEC in particular is in its best career in history thanks to be able to hire (and maintain) some of the best sports coaches, and gather the best lists in sport annually.
In an effort to try to invent land, several ACC programs have brought the younger boss coaches and future this season. Will Wade will seek to rejuvenate the state of North Carolina, Jai Lucas is every time he brings high -level talent to Miami, Ryan Oomdom takes in Virginia after years of years as one of the “next big things” in training, and the state of Luke Luke Toster Toster Toster Florida.
With due respect for Phillips and Company, this is the only way back to the top of the mountain for the ACC. No programming recruitment will hide another two months of actions below the torque before the calendar turns to 2026.
While the road to the recipe for the success of the conference has changed significantly in recent years, the recipe is static: great players, great coaches, stacking victories. Different than never before. The same thing was once.
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