You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to notice that ACC basketball is at one of its lowest points in a long time. After a season with just four Atlantic Coast teams qualifying for the NCAA Tournament, a change was more than due. The conference committee finally put that into fruition, announcing yesterday that it will move to an 18-game conference schedule instead of 20.
Now, what does this mean for teams like Syracuse, you may ask? Well, for starters, removing two conference games means that the Orange will have to schedule two more non-conference games every season. This opens the door for a lot of fun matchups for SU down the line, including a possible matchup with its Empire State foe St. John’s, a reunion with Gerry McNamara over in Siena, and much more. A team like the ‘Cuse might aim to be strategic with scheduling non-conference opponents, especially if there are fewer opportunities in-conference to bolster a tournament resume.
Alongside the schedule announcement, ACC basketball also paired up teams in the conference to be grandfathered in as “rivals” in this new system, meaning that the two teams are guaranteed to face off twice a season. Syracuse got matched up with Pittsburgh, which makes a lot of sense considering location as well as being paired as each other’s annual opponent in football. Does the former Big East rivalry still have any juice? If it does, this would be the time to make those matchups count at both the Dome and the Zoo.
No matter what, the biggest thing now is that conference games matter even more than they have in prior years. Only having 18 games to make your case for the ACC and NCAA Tournaments instead of 20 doesn’t seem like a big difference, but it definitely will make things more competitive at both the top and the bottom (we saw how this played out with SU almost missing this past year). Either way, this is a step in the right direction for the ACC to finally return to college basketball prominence and have more bids to March.
