ACC moving to 18 game conference schedule for 2025-26

[Hoo's That]

well yeah

but my point was also that the non-con means more than it ever has...and the acc has struggled in that area lately (which is why i think this is being considered)

non-con locks in the conference pecking order...didnt used to be that important

"Winning cures a multitude of ills." There would be no need to do this if the ACC were winning meaningful OOC games. I have a horrible feeling that a goodly number of these spots will be filled with Q4 games to build up records.

 

[EnviroSciGuy]

"Winning cures a multitude of ills." There would be no need to do this if the ACC were winning meaningful OOC games. I have a horrible feeling that a goodly number of these spots will be filled with Q4 games to build up records.

As long as margin of victory is a component of the computer rankings, that will only encourage such behavior even more.

 

[capeorange]

I'm sure they hope that everyone uses to 2 extra games to schedule a couple punching bags, and then beat them by more than 20 points. That's playing the computer ratings game.

Then we'd better find teams that are weaker than Lemoyne and Colgate based on the past few years.

 

[sutomcat]

Well, everyone will have to make the west coast swing once every two years, unless Stanford and Cal aren’t playing any road games.

Yup. I assume Stanford and Cal will be rivals. I assume ACC schools outside Californian will be Calford at home one year and play both on the roads the next.

So we should be able to assume Syracuse, which played both on the road last season, will get both at home this coming season.

The schedule from year to year should be an inverse of itself. If we play Duke and UNC at home me year, we play them on the road next season.

Probably will cost the ACC some money in TV revenue but maybe not. In theory, this should lead to more home games and more inventory for ESPN. The games probably won’t often be against big name opponents but some schools might use them that way.

It would be cool if we took one of these games and dedicated it to playing a major program in a conference we don’t normally play. Home and home with schools like Kansas, UCLA, Houston, Gonzaga, etc.

It would be nice to,see some of these schools play in the dome.

 

[orangecuse]

Waiving the white flag that the league will never be deep again.

That's also my interpretation from the deduction of conference games. Except, I'd exchange the "never" (never say never) for 'in all probability' or along those lines.

The ACC generally has been a weak sauce league over the past few years, a trend, that very well may likely continue. Nowadays, ACC teams beating themselves up, where once considered "quality losses," etc., is well in the rear view. The ACC, unfortunately, has swapped out places with yesteryear's SEC, and vice versa.

The ACC schools can't afford to replace those two conference games with weak OOC foes, as that won't help their cause or its current perception. Those two OOC game will need to be against quality opponents, where the ACC will need to win its fair share of, or else the 3-4 bid ACC league will remain just that.

 

[ECE '76]

You are correct.

I read it wrong. They went to 3 rivals after last year's expansion.

The 18-game ACC proposal would consist of one game against 16 teams and two games against a permanent rival (home and away) each season.

I have believed for a long time that the ultimate scheduling format for a college basketball league is to play everyone twice each season (home and away). Exhibit One is the original Big East. Small league, you played everyone twice, fans really got to know opponents, and the intensity heated to boiling. There were great regular season games back then even when the bottom feeders played the better teams. It was must see TV on weeknights, even when your school was not playing.

The ACC has an opportunity to emulate this now. 18 teams. Make 3 divisions of 6 teams each. Use history and geography to allocate the teams, the best you can. You play everyone in your division twice (home & away). That's 10 games. You play 8 games outside of the division, playing those teams just once. Yes, you miss playing 4 league members each year, but so what. Rotate among the non-division teams over the years equally.

Here's a possible division set up, but I'm not too hung up on the exact layout. New hated rivalries will develop quickly.

BC
Syracuse
Pitt
ND
Louisville
VaTech

UVa
Wake
UNC
Duke
NC State
Clemson

GaTech
FSU
Miami
SMU
Cal
Stanford

I think you could swap [Cal&Stanford] with [VaTech&Louisville]. It would work fine for travel.

It makes so much sense, no wonder the ACC wouldn't come up with this on their own. I think Dave Gavitt would approve.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[sufan59]

I’m going to go out on a limb that our additional game is going to involve

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Separated at birth:

Danny Hurley

Zeljko Ivanek

 

[cusefan88]

Would love St. Johns at MSG but not sure what their non-conf is like. As much as I hate Willard I would also accept Nova in Philly.

 

[sufan59]

Would love St. Johns at MSG but not sure what their non-conf is like. As much as I hate Willard I would also accept Nova in Philly.

We could be meeting St John’s in Vegas FYI.

 

[Archbold44]

I have believed for a long time that the ultimate scheduling format for a college basketball league is to play everyone twice each season (home and away). Exhibit One is the original Big East. Small league, you played everyone twice, fans really got to know opponents, and the intensity heated to boiling. There were great regular season games back then even when the bottom feeders played the better teams. It was must see TV on weeknights, even when your school was not playing.

The ACC has an opportunity to emulate this now. 18 teams. Make 3 divisions of 6 teams each. Use history and geography to allocate the teams, the best you can. You play everyone in your division twice (home & away). That's 10 games. You play 8 games outside of the division, playing those teams just once. Yes, you miss playing 4 league members each year, but so what. Rotate among the non-division teams over the years equally.

Here's a possible division set up, but I'm not too hung up on the exact layout. New hated rivalries will develop quickly.

BC
Syracuse
Pitt
ND
Louisville
VaTech

UVa
Wake
UNC
Duke
NC State
Clemson

GaTech
FSU
Miami
SMU
Cal
Stanford

I think you could swap [Cal&Stanford] with [VaTech&Louisville]. It would work fine for travel.

It makes so much sense, no wonder the ACC wouldn't come up with this on their own. I think Dave Gavitt would approve.

I might think swapping Cal/Stanford with Va Tech/Louisville... and then swap Va Tech and Clemson.

 

[dasher]

Pretty sure that was a university mandate to maximize revenues, not something JB particularly wanted.

Unfortunately we're watching attendance drop so quickly that leaving the Dome a lot in nonconference games is becoming the better strategy for revenue maximization.

It was actually more than that. The University got state aid and one of the things Pataki asked the University to do was to play schools from the state in the Indy schedule.

 

[Madbiker]

Scheduling 2 more Q2 type teams and winning those games will boost your Net Ranking a lot more than scheduling two Q1 teams and losing those games. In fact Q1 losses don't help at all.
And since the dumb Net Ranking rewards margin of victory and punishes margin of loss make sure to run up the scores against weaker teams and avoid letting losses get out of hand late (like not putting in walk ons for mop up time).

 

[Niastri]

That's also my interpretation from the deduction of conference games. Except, I'd exchange the "never" (never say never) for 'in all probability' or along those lines.

The ACC generally has been a weak sauce league over the past few years, a trend, that very well may likely continue. Nowadays, ACC teams beating themselves up, where once considered "quality losses," etc., is well in the rear view. The ACC, unfortunately, has swapped out places with yesteryear's SEC, and vice versa.

The ACC schools can't afford to replace those two conference games with weak OOC foes, as that won't help their cause or its current perception. Those two OOC game will need to be against quality opponents, where the ACC will need to win its fair share of, or else the 3-4 bid ACC league will remain just that.

It certainly isn’t a determination of conference quality next year, but the ACC has had a lot of quality talent transfer into the conference for the upcoming season.

The ACC also did very well in high school recruiting, with 5 of the top 10 high school recruiting classes, and 9 in the top 35. (247 sports) Overall, the 247 newcomer rankings has 9 ACC teams in the top40 when combining the two talent sources. There are other ranking sources that agree the ACC has done well, even if they disagree about the exact rankings.

Maybe the strength of the SEC NIL last season surprised the ACC conference collectively, the ability to pay players directly from the university leveled the playing field, or for whatever other reason, but the ACC was terrible last season.

But whatever caused it, the conference seems to have come back very strong with both high school and transfer recruiting this season.

My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that a lot of very rich boosters throughout the ACC were embarrassed about the results last season, and opened up their wallets. It has been very strongly implied by knowledgeable posters here that the Syracuse boosters did exactly that, and the extra money had made a big difference in Red’s “recruiting” ability.

In short, ranking of talent is imprecise, and coaching, chemistry and every other factor determining team quality still has to come into play… But the ACC at least did a good job bringing in talent this off-season, and that is at least half the way to a good team.

I expect the ACC to be much better this season.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

ACC Men’s Basketball to Feature 18-Game Conference Schedule Beginning in 2025-26 Season

The Atlantic Coast Conference has announced its men’s basketball teams will play an 18-game conference schedule beginning with the 2025-26 season. The ACC has conducted 20-game conference schedules since the 2019-20 season and last played 18-game league schedules from the 2012-13 through 2018-19...

theacc.com

The 18-game schedule features teams starting league play in late December and ending on the first Saturday of March. Each team will play one primary partner both home and away as well as one variable partner home and away. The variable partner will be determined each season. Teams will play one game, home or away, against 14 of the remaining 15 teams annually.

Primary Partners:
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 breakdown of 2025-26 opponents and conference schedules will be announced at a later date.

Following the regular season, the 2026 T. Rowe Price ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament will be held Tuesday through Saturday, March 10-14, at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The 73rd edition of the tournament will be played for the 15th time in Charlotte, including the fourth at Spectrum Center (2008, 2019, 2025). The bracket – inclusive of seeding, times and networks – will be announced on Saturday, March 7 following the conclusion of the regular season.

 

[longtimefan]

ACC Men’s Basketball to Feature 18-Game Conference Schedule Beginning in 2025-26 Season

The Atlantic Coast Conference has announced its men’s basketball teams will play an 18-game conference schedule beginning with the 2025-26 season. The ACC has conducted 20-game conference schedules since the 2019-20 season and last played 18-game league schedules from the 2012-13 through 2018-19...

theacc.com

The 18-game schedule features teams starting league play in late December and ending on the first Saturday of March. Each team will play one primary partner both home and away as well as one variable partner home and away. The variable partner will be determined each season. Teams will play one game, home or away, against 14 of the remaining 15 teams annually.

Primary Partners:
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 breakdown of 2025-26 opponents and conference schedules will be announced at a later date.

Following the regular season, the 2026 T. Rowe Price ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament will be held Tuesday through Saturday, March 10-14, at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The 73rd edition of the tournament will be played for the 15th time in Charlotte, including the fourth at Spectrum Center (2008, 2019, 2025). The bracket – inclusive of seeding, times and networks – will be announced on Saturday, March 7 following the conclusion of the regular season.

So everybody misses one opponent every year. Helluva way to run a conference.

 

[jncuse]

I'm sure they hope that everyone uses to 2 extra games to schedule a couple punching bags, and then beat them by more than 20 points. That's playing the computer ratings game.

That's not really correct (or maybe it depends_. If you stink, like the ACC did last year there is nothing you can do to really game things.

Beating punching bags is only going to win the computer ratings game for the ACC if they do it as well, or nearly as well as the other power conferences. And last year the ACC was not even close to the other powers- they got their ass kicked in the "Q4" games relative to the other big conferences.

Here is my data from OOC this year (about 85% of games up to December 15 when i quit tracking it)

Margins in Q4 games:
B12 - 28.3
SEC - 27.9
B10 - 25.9
BE - 22.4
ACC - 19.2
That 9 point delta is a massive difference when those are about 50% of your games.

As stated in my tracking thread, the Q4 games matter a lot because its nearly half of your OOC possessions. And that is problematic - they shouldn't mean as much. (ACC played 46% of them... in line with all the other big conferences who played 44% to 49%) But its not simply a matter of playing more of them... everybody plays a lot. Its doing as well as others in them.

 

[ar inj]

So everybody misses one opponent every year. Helluva way to run a conference.

Absolutely absurd.

We can all probably guess which NC schools demanded a home-and-home with a primary and a secondary opponent so they could oh so coincidentally each all their home-and-home games in NC

 

[IthacaMatt]

That's not really correct (or maybe it depends_. If you stink, like the ACC did last year there is nothing you can do to really game things.

Beating punching bags is only going to win the computer ratings game for the ACC if they do it as well, or nearly as well as the other power conferences. And last year the ACC was not even close to the other powers- they got their ass kicked in the "Q4" games relative to the other big conferences.

Here is my data from OOC this year (about 85% of games up to December 15 when i quit tracking it)

Margins in Q4 games:
B12 - 28.3
SEC - 27.9
B10 - 25.9
BE - 22.4
ACC - 19.2
That 9 point delta is a massive difference when those are about 50% of your games.

As stated in my tracking thread, the Q4 games matter a lot because its nearly half of your OOC possessions. And that is problematic - they shouldn't mean as much. (ACC played 46% of them... in line with all the other big conferences who played 44% to 49%) But its not simply a matter of playing more of them... everybody plays a lot. Its doing as well as others in them.

Don't you think it's easier to beat a Q4 team by 20+ than it is to win a Q2 game by 10+. From the in-depth examination of the ranking system you gave us last year, that's how it looks to me.

Yes, the ACC underachieved against tomato cans last year, and it was a shockingly major factor in the conference being rated 7th overall instead of, say, 4th best league.

But it's certainly easier to run it up against over-matched opponents than it is to beat 2 challenging opponents with your extra 2 games.

 

[sutomcat]

Absolutely absurd.

We can all probably guess which NC schools demanded a home-and-home with a primary and a secondary opponent so they could oh so coincidentally each all their home-and-home games in NC

Could be the NC schools wanting to play each other more. Given the second home and home has flexibility, I suspect ESPN may have requested this to get more attractive games to feature.

I think we have been playing BC home and home ias our primary rival in hoops since we joined the ACC. Surprised it changed to Pitt.

Is this BC trying to get connected to ND in hopes of following them to a new conference? It stinks we lose an extra game against a really bad program. Plus BC is closer and easier to get to for SU fans and alums.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Could be the NC schools wanting to play each other more. Given the second home and home has flexibility, I suspect ESPN may have requested this to get more attractive games to feature.

I think we have been playing BC home and home ias our primary rival in hoops since we joined the ACC. Surprised it changed to Pitt.

Is this BC trying to get connected to ND in hopes of following them to a new conference? It stinks we lose an extra game against a really bad program. Plus BC is closer and easier to get to for SU fans and alums.

Somebody had to get stuck with SMU, and Louisville made geographic sense.

The Cali schools paired off. The Southern schools paired off.

That leaves the 4 Northern schools. Does ND have more of a rivalry with Pitt, SU or BC?

 

[Archbold44]

So everybody misses one opponent every year. Helluva way to run a conference.

A new level of stupid, really. Playing everybody plus a rival makes complete sense to get 18 games. Why the ridiculous skip a team to play some second team twice?

I am not sure why the ACC does not approach the B12 for a position round game in February. #1 vs #1... #2 vs #2, etc. The 6 vs 6 game might help a few teams that will be on the bubble, etc. You could even put the top 8 games at a few neutral locations. I suppose they could retain some discretion to move up/down to avoid rematches. But would help both conferences get viewership and good games. These stupid "challenges" in December are scheduled in the offseason... before you really know who is good or not... injuries, etc. By February, a much better sense of things. And a good break from the conference slate. Play 1/2 the conference games... then a challenge with B12... then the rest of the conference games.

 

[Niastri]

A new level of stupid, really. Playing everybody plus a rival makes complete sense to get 18 games. Why the ridiculous skip a team to play some second team twice?

I am not sure why the ACC does not approach the B12 for a position round game in February. #1 vs #1... #2 vs #2, etc. The 6 vs 6 game might help a few teams that will be on the bubble, etc. You could even put the top 8 games at a few neutral locations. I suppose they could retain some discretion to move up/down to avoid rematches. But would help both conferences get viewership and good games. These stupid "challenges" in December are scheduled in the offseason... before you really know who is good or not... injuries, etc. By February, a much better sense of things. And a good break from the conference slate. Play 1/2 the conference games... then a challenge with B12... then the rest of the conference games.

I really like the “challenge” concept of the matchups being determined after part of the conference season has been played. Makes for a much more compelling story.

“Surprise underdog Syracuse, an unexpected 8-0 to start ACC play, is now matched up with juggernaut Houston, undefeated on the season, coming off a championship game appearance last season. Houston has just been rolling teams, with a huge average margin of victory so far this year. This matchup between two top10 teams, it seems like a mismatch, even with how good Syracuse has been. How do you think they are going to handle the physical play of Houston, Tom?”

 

[IthacaMatt]

Yup. I assume Stanford and Cal will be rivals. I assume ACC schools outside Californian will be Calford at home one year and play both on the roads the next.

So we should be able to assume Syracuse, which played both on the road last season, will get both at home this coming season.

The schedule from year to year should be an inverse of itself. If we play Duke and UNC at home me year, we play them on the road next season.

Probably will cost the ACC some money in TV revenue but maybe not. In theory, this should lead to more home games and more inventory for ESPN. The games probably won’t often be against big name opponents but some schools might use them that way.

It would be cool if we took one of these games and dedicated it to playing a major program in a conference we don’t normally play. Home and home with schools like Kansas, UCLA, Houston, Gonzaga, etc.

It would be nice to,see some of these schools play in the dome.

Unfortunately, they haven't done simple "inverse versions" of schedules from year to year, or we wouldn't have such inconsistent schedules.