The Atlantic Coast Conference is hoping its men's basketball programs trade two fewer league games for marquee nonconference matchups in an effort to reverse a dwindling haul of NCAA Tournament bids.
The league announced Wednesday it is reducing its 20-game men's basketball schedule to 18. The change comes after Commissioner Jim Phillips has been vocal about spending the past two seasons examining the conundrum of the ACC getting fewer bids - down to four this year, its fewest since 2013 - despite having teams regularly playing deep into March.
Going to 18 games could make room for schools to add quality nonconference matchups to help their schedule strength - and therefore the ACC's stature, provided the league wins its share of measuring-stick games, unlike last year. It will shake up the scheduling model, which will mean ACC teams won't face one league member each year.
In a statement, Phillips said the move - first reported by CBS Sports - is "a direct result of our ongoing strategic review and analysis" and gives them more control of scheduling by freeing up two slots. It also comes as the league implements a new revenue-distribution model that will factor in TV viewership in its payouts to league schools, which could offer even more incentive to schedule marquee opponents that fans want to watch to boost the bottom line.
"This decision reflects our on-going prioritization to do what's best for ACC Men's Basketball," Phillips said, "and we appreciate the thoughtfulness of our membership and the support from our television partners."
The new model will have the league schedule running from late December into the first Saturday of March. Each team will play one primary partner at home and away every year, with those pairings - such as famed rivals Duke and North Carolina or instate opponents Virginia and Virginia Tech - designed to create some protection for long-running series.
The others primary pairings are Boston College-Notre Dame, Clemson-Georgia Tech, California-Stanford, Florida State-Miami, Louisville-SMU, N.C. State-Wake Forest and Pittsburgh-Syracuse.
Each team also will play a home-and-away series against a partner that will change each year, then play one game against 14 of the remaining 15 teams.
It won't be perfect. Aside from the fact that some teams won't play each another, there are hiccups such as no guarantees that neighboring rivals UNC and North Carolina State will have their typical home-and-away meetings; the Tar Heels and Wolfpack have played those every year reaching back to their Southern Conference days long before the ACC's birth in May 1953.
Still, Phillips had been clear the league had to make changes to address the newfound shakiness in a sport widely and long regarded as its crown jewel.
The ACC had played an 18-game schedule from the 2012-13 season through 2018-19, then moved to a 20-game slate for the 2019-20 season with its ESPN-partnered launch of the ACC Network. At the time, the ACC was coming off a fourth straight season with at least seven NCAA bids - including a record nine in 2018 and 2019 - while having three No. 1 seeds in 2019 and winning three of five national titles (Duke in 2015, North Carolina in 2017 and Virginia in 2019).
Things have been tougher since the pandemic, coinciding with the retirement of big-name coaches like UNC's Roy Williams, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim. Or last year with the unexpected departure of Virginia's Tony Bennett weeks before the season began.
The league had seven bids during the "bubble" 2021 tournament in Indiana, then fell to five for three straight seasons before sliding to four this year, its first as an expanded 18-team basketball conference. By comparison, the ACC had 12 teams the last time it got just four bids in 2013.
And yet, the league also had both UNC and Duke in the Final Four in 2022, Miami there in 2023, N.C. State in 2024 and Duke again in April.
The ACC's move comes after a similar change for the Big 12, which announced in March that it would drop from 20 games to 18 after its coaches had expressed concerns about a grinding schedule with no time for rest. The SEC, which got a record 14 bids from its 16 teams last year, plays 18 games while the Big Ten plays 20.