The ACC has announced the new scheduling formats for football and basketball which includes one rather disturbing change in basketball.
A breakdown of the future scheduling models include:
Football:
The Atlantic and Coastal divisions will remain the same with Syracuse joining the Atlantic and Pitt joining the Coastal. The current primary crossover partners will remain consistent with Syracuse and Pitt becoming primary crossover partners with each other.
When Pitt and Syracuse join the ACC, the league will play a nine-game conference schedule. The format will consist of each team playing all six in its division each year, plus its primary crossover partner each year and two rotating opponents from the opposite division. This six-year cycle allows each team to play each divisional opponent and its primary crossover partner six times (three home and three away) while also playing each rotating crossover opponent two times (one home and one away).
Men’s and Women’s Basketball:
As previously announced, the ACC will play an 18-game conference schedule beginning in 2012-13.
When Pitt and Syracuse join, each school will have one primary partner (Boston College and Syracuse; Clemson and Georgia Tech; Duke and North Carolina; Florida State and Miami; Maryland and Pitt; NC State and Wake Forest; Virginia and Virginia Tech).
The scheduling model will be based on a three-year cycle during which teams will play every league opponent at least once with the primary partners playing home and away annually while the other 12 rotate in groups of four: one year both home and away; one year at home only; and one year away only. Over the course of the three-year cycle primary partners play a total of six times and all other conference opponents play four times.
The format allows each program to see opponents with more regularity and creates an increase in competitive balance throughout the teams. It was determined that all 14 league members will continue to compete in the ACC Men’s and Women’s Tournaments and a decision on the Tournament formats will be announced at a later date.
In football the ACC will go to a nine game conference schedule. Syracuse will go to the Atlantic division with Pitt ending up in the Coastal. The current permanent crossover opponents will remain the same meaning UNC and NC State will continue to play their annual game versus each other. A nine game schedule also means teams will have seasons where they play five roads games and only four home games in ACC play.
In basketball the schedule will move to 18 games and everyone will be reduced to one permanent partner instead of two. That means UNC and NC State will no longer have yearly played each other twice a year. UNC’s permanent partner will be Duke and NC State will be attached to Wake Forest. All non-permanent partner games are setup on a three year cycle with teams playing once in the first two years then twice in the third year.
This change will obviously generated the most controversy among those of us who are ACC traditionalists and have long been irritated over what expansion has done to dilute the basketball product. Let me be clear, I am not necessarily knocking expansion because it is what it is in today’s college athletics landscape. However the lack of a round robin in basketball bugs me to no end but because UNC still had home-away games with both Duke and NC State I could live with it. Now we have a situation where the ACC it taking away something that, regardless of how it has gone over the past twenty years, is still two games that generate some passionate feelings among the fan bases. Not only that but the last time UNC and NCSU did not play twice a year was 1919! That is a long history of games now being pushed aside and right when it appears NC State might be close to finally getting their act together.
Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about it. With the rash of conference expansion the ACC moved to keep itself viable in whatever future is ultimately carved out. There money coming from ESPN is far more important the preserving the traditions of ACC basketball which ultimately put the conference on the map in the first place. The N&O’s Joe Giglio best summed it up on Twitter:
Today’s news in short and stop me if you’ve heard this before: good for football, bad for basketball
This is what expansion has wrought. Welcome to the new ACC.
![[Bloglines]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Technorati]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://www.tarheelblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
The ACC will not be happy until they completely destroy their college basketball conference.
Maybe with this expansion and new “money” the ACC will compete nationally in football, and not just be the laughing stock of the BCS….
are you KIDDING….
is there something wrong with having 3 primaries and rotating only groups of 2 through the home/away/both sequence?
the Big 4 couldve been grouped.
yeah, yeah, there arent enough teams. but cmon. 100 years almost of tradition. surely you can justify a slight imbalance.
Pretty soon the season will just be a 600 team NCAA tournament!
i wouldve even preferred 7-team groups. UNC, dook, State, Wake, Va, Maryland, Clemson.
we dont need to play all the others every time.
ok, i’m done. i hate it.
It was my hopes there could be round robin regionals. The end of the ACC as we knew it. Wish there was some way it could have been done regionally to where we play NCSU/Duke/Wake/UVA twice. Not happening!
^well you could. if you just decide to make it so. it would increase the schedule to 19 instead of 18. whoop dee doo.
did Calhoun pull a K-rat bad back maneuver today?
How about they add the additional teams that we know are coming in the future and go to a 16 team league.
Break the league in 4 pods (where the NC schools are 1 pod) that play each other twice then you play the remaining schools once.
But ESPN wants more opportunities for Pitt/UNC, Pitt/Duke, Syracuse/UNC, and Syracuse/Duke. So that might not even happen either………
From a fan’s perspective, aren’t we getting close to the point of asking, “What does a conference even mean anymore?” College athletics is a business, and like in business, we will eventually end up with 2-3 powerhouses in a few decades (or less). The ACC might become the EMC (East of the Mississippi Conference). Duke will be the only UNC rivalry that really matters.
This is simply a sign of the times. Television revenue has been placed above all else.
The level of damage to traditional rivalries is hard to predict. But if the latest WFU/UNC game is a bellwether, fan apathy and loss of tradition is at a new high.
The heart of the ACC is the four NC teams. They should have some means of continuing that legacy in the future.
Diminishing the core rivalries (fashioned over a CENTURY in UNC/NCSU) and marginalizing the competitive level of other teams is not going to be positive long term.
Fortunately there are still some strong teams in the league. There need to be more. The traditional competition between schools has been built up over a very long time. It is ultimately tragic to throw it away.
As much as I miss the old, round-robin schedule, as someone who lives an hour west of Syracuse, I’m certainly not going to complain about a schedule that maximizes the number of trips the Heels make up here.
Why call it the “ACC” anymore? Why even have conferences anymore? If you’re going to package together a bunch of random teams from NY, Florida, and so on, just schedule your entire season like the preseason. Have all bids to the NCAA tournament at-large.
UNC, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVa, MD, Georgetown, Wake Forest, NC State, and Georgia Tech should form a basketball only conference. There have been plenty of schools who have played in different conferences in football and basketball.
I understand that college football is a bigger draw, but it also is a bigger draw in budget terms, and much more subject to corruption. There are very few top level institutions that field excellent football teams. But schools like Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Stanford and Duke regularly field great basketball teams. I am a little tired of basketball at UNC being dragged around by our perennially mediocre football program.
Nobody likes this notion. We all want to have it all, but a school like Wake Forest has to decide where they want to cast their lots. Right now they are horrible at basketball and mediocre at football, and apparently happy that way. But just wait, until their football dips a little more and then they are bad at both. Wake had a top ten basketball program from say 1995 to 2005. Their football team has never seriously competed and never will, but they drank the kool-ade that they were going to be a football school.
So the ACC Tournament will begin in February now?
“There are very few top level institutions that field excellent football teams. But schools like Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Stanford and Duke regularly field great basketball teams.”
Isn’t this more an indication that top level, private, schools (save for USC) can’t regularly field great football teams? There are a lot of great public schools (“Public Ivies” like: Texas, Florida, Michigan, Penn St. Wisconsin, Cal, Washington) who do regularly field goof-to-great FB teams.
2 more games…i guess thatll mean more December games.
and 14-team tourney…either 2 or 6 byes?
“UNC, Duke, Vanderbilt, UVa, MD, Georgetown, Wake Forest, NC State, and Georgia Tech should form a basketball only conference.”
This conference already has a problem: the dreaded play-in game. (J/K)
“and 14-team tourney…either 2 or 6 byes?”
14 is a tough number to schedule. Wouldn’t be surprised if they only invite the top-12.
except it says theyll all be invited to the tournament.
SOK’s moms sent out a happy aniversary tweet today, I replied, Enjoy this day, bc I sure am….
I tweeted about it but left her handle off so she won’t see it in her mentions. I try not to make contact with visibly insane people.
Larry Drew, as Bomani so nicely puts it, is the product of Insufficient Daddy’n.
This sucks. UNC should always get to break State Fans’ hearts twice every year.
Next we’ll find out all of UNC’s games will tipoff at 9:00 PM on Wednesday night and be televised on ESPN3 (or some other stupid channel I don’t have) and the ACC Tournament has been moved to Madison Square Garden for the next 10 years…
“ACC Tournament has been moved to Madison Square Garden for the next 10 years…”
that one is very likely
850inExile aka UNC RAJ
Don’t be surprised if some variation of this happens. The 9PM game is based only on TV, so why not go for it.
The real problem will be how TV reacts if ratings go DOWN. The more dilute the conference, the lower the level of perceived or real competition, the more likely interest will decrease.
Admittedly, as long as there are a few teams to hype, the show will go on. Just destroy some 100 year relationships along the way.
HTTE,
Yes, missed that. In that case, I would expect we see the same format we currently have, with the bottom four teams playing on Wednesday to determine the 5 – 12 matchups on Thursday (1-4 get a bye to Friday).
The Big East hasn’t been mentioned yet. That conference became, arguably, the best basketball conference as it expanded and expanded. Not all schools had football programs, so this is an uneven comparison, but who is to say that the ACC can’t do better at that game?
Overall, I have to agree with the prevailing sentiment, though, and hate to lose playing traditional rivals twice.
It is hard to find any large public institution that is dominant in football and basketball on an ongoing basis. Yes, schools like UCLA, Michigan State, Florida and Ohio State have been good at both football and basketball at different times, but seldom does the situation persist.
The notion that people in Texas really care about UT’s basketball team is somewhat laughable. The fans are all talking about spring football practice while they watch the basketball team. The same is true for Florida.
Mega-large universities flush with cash, and amazing facilities, i.e., OSU, Texas, Florida and Michigan, come closest to being good at both sports, but it still really isn’t the same. If you want UNC to be UNC in basketball, then you need to accept that we will continue being UNC in football, which means decent.
Except for a couple of years under Mack Brown, both ways, our team generally doesn’t embarrass us, nor does it tend to excel. We seem to win our 6 to 9 games a year, mostly snoozing all the way through. UNC hasn’t had a compelling football season since Brown’s last year, well over ten years ago.
Neither Kansas nor Kentucky nor Duke nor UCLA nor Indiana nor UNC is likely to ever have sustained football success. The two sports, unlike baseball and football, overlap in season, and one of the sports is inevitably overshadowed.
The best basketball prospects are not, in general, all things being equal, looking to attend schools where no one cares about basketball until January 10th, when they can attend one of the six programs with 3 or more national titles, and have the attention of the campus starting in October.
“The best basketball prospects are not, in general, all things being equal, looking to attend schools where no one cares about basketball until January 10th,”
I can’t tell if Texas was meant to be included in this category, but I think they are certainly an exception to the idea.
Though Texas and Rick Barnes don’t have much to show for it in terms of NC’s, etc., Texas is in the top 5 in recruiting Top 25 HS players over the last 10 years, and it looks like they will have another Top 5 class, overall, in 2012.
What’s interesting to me is that the ACC came out of the old Southern Conference, which truly was that, with members from all across the South. The eight original ACC schools apparently felt the SC had gotten too large and they wanted to form a more tightly-bound conference with regional rivalries.
Now things have cycled back to huge conferences that spread across much of the US, and in the process ignore those regional rivalries.
That is a good point, Larrys.
I still don’t buy Texas. They aren’t good at all this year, and no one cares. When UNC was bad, people were losing sleep. Don’t tell me that a program is excellent until someone somewhere is losing sleep when they don’t win. Oh, wait, is that why Rick Perry has been so distracted? No, he went to A&M. Come to think of it, Texas stank in football this year, but Mack got an extension anyway. That is good work if you can get it.
It wasn’t entirely pure, but the original Southern Conference-derived ACC featured some of the best schools in the South and there were some real rivalries. It started off more football oriented but Case and McGuire and Bubas changed that quickly. Then Dean Smith, the second incarnation of McGuire and Norman Sloan and Lefty Driesell made sure that basketball reigned supreme.
Obviously, there are many who would like to change that.