A Thought for the New ACC

So... We moved to the ACC. I hate it. Won't get into it here. It caused me to get very, very mad because I have lived for the Big East my entire life, with my parents being Georgetown alums and going to Syracuse myself. But it happened. (Good luck to Cuse getting a penny more from me for a good long while) And the expansion of the ACC isn't over, nor is their raiding of the Big East. For arguments' sake, and going off of everything I have read, UConn and at least one other Big East team will join. I have heard Rutgers wants in the Big Ten (12...) and that WVU is thinking about the SEC. So, I am not sure what team will be going to the ACC, but let us assume for a second that the team will come from somewhere above the Mason/Dixon line. They want to expand north, so I think that is a safe assumption.

It would be unfair to thrust these new north east teams into a division with the likes of Miami, FSU or Georgia Tech. Similarly, it wouldn't be fair to make these warm weather schools go to Storrs, Cuse (indoors, but still), or Pitt at the end of November. So, I say we re-align the divisions. We lose this "Coastal" and "Atlantic" hullabaloo, and just go to ACC North and ACC South. Two 8-team divisions for a total of 16 teams. The winner of each gets to play in the ACC Title game, which I say we move from Florida to a fairer (geographical, not weather-wise) location, such as Fed-Ex Field outside of DC or M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.

The makeup of these two divisions are as follows:

ACC North

1. Syracuse
2. Pitt
3. UConn
4. 4th Big East team
5. Maryland
6. Boston College
7. UVA
8. Virginia Tech

ACC South

1. UNC
2. Duke
3. Georgia Tech
4. Miami
5. Florida State
6. Georgia Tech
7. Clemson
8. NC State

That's my thought. I am sure the ACC will mess it up. Here are some fun quotes from my man Jim Boeheim about the expansion:

Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim, one day after his university and Pittsburgh officially became ACC members, said he believes Connecticut and possibly Rutgers will also join the ACC.

"I think UConn will be in the ACC, if I had to guess," Boeheim said today during a speech at the Monday Morning Quarterback Club in Birmingham. "I think Rutgers could be. I think some people are thinking of leaving. ... Why would Florida State want to go to the SEC when you're in the ACC and you win banners? Doesn't make sense."

Boeheim said there will be a "mad scramble" in the next few months around the country as super conferences emerge.

"It's kind of like a dance," he said. "You don't want to be the one standing up at the end with no chair to sit in."

Boeheim, who has been at Syracuse for 50 years as a player or coach, is a traditionalist. He prefers 10-team conferences based on geography and rivalries in which every team plays each other once in football and twice in basketball.

"If conference commissioners were the founding fathers of this country, we would have Guatemala, Uruguay and Argentina in the United States," Boeheim said. "This audience knows why we are doing this. There's two reasons: Money and football.

"We're going to end up with mega conferences and 10 years from now either I'm going to be dead wrong -- and I'll be the first to admit it -- or everybody is going to be like, why did we do this again? Why is Alabama playing Texas A&M this week and going to Texas Tech next weekend? And why is Syracuse going to Miami in basketball this week and next week they're going to play Florida State?"

During an interview prior to his speech, Boeheim was skeptical that conference realignment will actually result in more money for most schools once costs are considered.

"It's interesting because 30 years ago schools made X amount of money," he said. "Twenty years ago, they made 2X. Ten years ago, they made 4X. Now they're going to make 6X. And you know what? They're going to end up breaking even, just like they did 30 years ago.

"At the end of the day, there's a school with a billion-dollar budget and they're talking about making an extra $4 million. What does that really mean when your school's budget is a billion dollars? It's just what has happened. People feel like they have to get these mega conferences. Whether they're right or wrong, we won't know for a while."

How out of the loop was Boeheim on the ACC discussions? He said if someone had told him Thursday night that Syracuse was headed to the ACC, "I would have said you were crazy."

Syracuse is a charter member of the Big East, which was founded as a basketball conference in 1979. Boeheim said he's sure Syracuse will continue to try to play Georgetown and St. John's.

"We've played St. John's for the 50 years I've been at Syracuse, and Georgetown for 40, so yeah, there's some nostalgia there," Boeheim said. "There's some heartbreak, no question about it. But it is what it is. Things do change. The Big East changed over the years. It's not that frustrating now because we have a 17-team basketball conference. If we had a nice, 10-team league, I'd be more upset. But we don't have that anymore. We have Marquette, DePaul, TCU coming in and who knows who else coming in."

Boeheim said he expects the ACC Tournament will mostly be held in the South and occasionally come to Madison Square Garden in New York, where the Big East has annually held its tournament.

"It's a great place for a tournament," he said. "Where would you want to go to to a tournament for five days? Let's see: Greensboro, North Carolina, or New York City? Jeez. Let me think about that one and get back to you."