On this week's podcast, we broke down the decision made by the ACC to scale back to 18 conference hoops games per year from 20, in an attempt to help the league's postseason viability. Crediting our own Dave Spence with the initial idea, we threw around the idea of having two divisions, and what opportunities that could bring to scheduling. After throwing a few ideas around, we're ready to present the official, never-to-be-implemented-but-better-than what-we-currently-have CavsCorner ACC Scheduling Proposal.

League Setup:

2 9-team divisions within the conference. Name them whatever you want. One would be a collection of original ACC teams + 1, and the other would be the league's newcomers from far and wide.

Schedule:

20 Conference Games (16 Division + 2 Interleague + 2 Wild Card)

Division Play:

Each team would play the other 8 divisional rivals once home, and once away. This would make up the core of the schedule, 16 of the 20 league games. For UVa, it would guarantee fans would see all of their original ACC rivals (except the departed Maryland Terrapins) at JPJ each season.

Interleague Play:

In the preseason, the conference would select and announce 'Interleague' opponents for each school. Every school would get one home interleague game and one away. Having the conference decide who plays who allows for flexibility, and perhaps opens up a path to keep schools like Louisville and Syracuse happy with more premier matchups vs teams in Division A. The league will consider strength of schedule and how often the teams have played (example: If NC State and Pitt were paired up in the 2025-26 wild card games, they don’t need to play the following year as random opponents.) Also, nobody will play Duke and UNC in the same year in Interleague play. Those games will be split up so they rotate around to different Division B opponents as often as possible. These games could all be played in one designated week mid-way through the ACC schedule, perhaps in early February.

Wild Card Games:

The final two games of the season, these will be more cross-division games, but determined by the standings at the end of division play. Opponents won't be known ahead of time, but the league can decide in advance which division hosts in the mid-week game and which hosts on the final weekend of the season, so fans know when their final home game will be, they just won't know who against until a few days before.

The first of two wild card games will be against the team in the same standings spot in the other division (#1 vs #1, #2 vs #2, and so on.) The second game will be based on standings but will allow schools further down the standings opportunities against better opponents to earn potential signature victories. Our format for game two of the wild-card round is as follows:

#1 vs #7

#2 vs #6

#3 vs #4 or #4 vs #5 (One #3 would play #5, the other would play #4)

This second wild card game could allow for some creativity, too. It could be chosen at random by ping-pong balls, for example, like European Soccer matchups are picked in tournaments.

ACC Tournament Play-In Games:

The #8 and #9 teams in each division will face each other in the final wild-card games, on the last day of the season. #8 in Division A will play #9 in Division B, and vice versa. The winner of those games claim the final two spots in the ACC Tournament, and the losers fail to qualify. This is similar to the NBA's new(ish) Play-In format, and would both drive intrigue and allow everyone a single-elimination shot to be in, at a minimum.

16 teams qualify rather than the current 15. The top 7 in each division automatically qualify, bottom two in each division go into the playoff for the last two spots. This would be the same number of days as the current format (Tues-Saturday), but Tuesday picks up an additional fourth game.

To avoid rematches, the bracket would be set up to put top teams (and bottom teams) from each division on opposite sides. This is how the SEC used to do their tournament when they had divisions. For example, if UVa finished atop the Division A standings and Louisville was atop Division B, they would be placed in slots A1 and B1 respectively, which would be on opposite sides of the bracket. UVa (A1) would be paired with B2 and Louisville (B1) would be paired with A2, and so on. This creates more cross-division matchups in the tournament and fewer rematches, at least until the later stages.

The top two teams in each division get a double bye to the quarterfinals. Teams #3 and #4 in each division get single byes to the Second Round. Everyone else plays on Tuesday, going from 16 teams down to 12, and so on, as the current format works, just with one extra first-round game. The bottom eight teams would be seeded based on division standing; if both bottom seeds are from the same division which could happen if one division won both play-in games, they'll be seeded according to their finish in their division.

The league could also put the team in the 'A1' spot in the 7pm Quarterfinal game instead of Noon if they want, as this team would come from the more local division, which would bring more fans, and eyeballs to the game potentially, if the tournament is held in the heart of Division A country.

Every school in Division A might support this. For all but one of the schools and fanbases, it would be pretty close to what a lot of folks want: a return to something like the old ACC with home-and-homes. Virginia Tech is probably the best fit of the non-original conference members to join this division. They’re a rival with UVa, so keeping them in Division A keeps that rivalry home-and-home alive, and they’re also a better geographic fit than other options. This setup allows a school like UVa to play all their traditional conference rivals home and away every year, while losing games that most fans don’t care about, and games that frankly won’t likely move the needle a ton from a resume standpoint.

A lot of the fanbases would like this move, and most of the schools at risk of leaving the ACC for mostly football reasons would be in this division, and would likely support it. Travel for this division would be much better too. For UVa, five of their road games in the division can be reached by bus rather than plane. That’s true for a lot of schools on that side of this new league.

The league’s TV partners benefit from this proposal too, we think. It creates more opportunity for rivalries to spring up, and old ones to be recharged a bit. Plus, the interleague play, wildcard week and the play-in game opportunity create more intrigue than the schedule currently has. We think the ACC Tournament format is better too, with 16 teams instead of 15, and now, with a play-in game at the end of the season, everyone has a one-game chance to qualify, at least.

This is where it gets tricky. In any proposal like this, there will be winners and losers. Some schools in Division B might actually be somewhat better off or ambivalent by this proposal, and others will flat out not be supportive. There may be a perception that Division A is the favored group, in what could be considered a two-tier system. The better basketball programs in this division may not like getting less-frequent games with Duke and UNC, something the league would have to compensate for in some way, perhaps. Other programs, like Boston College, might actually be okay competing in a league with more old Big East rivals than legacy ACC foes, and might not miss having Duke or UNC come to town so often. This league will also have far more travel than the other division, with the California trips and the schools furthest north (BC) and south (Miami) on the east coast, too.

Frankly, this proposal works a lot better for the teams in Division A, but those schools are also the ones the league needs to keep happy to function beyond the next decade. And there may be a creative way to appease the schools in Division B that are unhappy. It’s also important that Division B schools maintain competitiveness so a school like Louisville that has a good basketball team doesn’t get punished from a strength of schedule perspective.

Also, anyone that wants to see their school play everyone else in the conference every year also doesn’t benefit from this proposal. But how many people even care? A few fanbases in Division B will be mad they aren’t playing Duke and UNC specifically, but do SMU fans care about playing Wake? Or do Cal fans care about an annual game against Georgia Tech? Doubtful.

Other Schedule Options: The league could throw out the wild card or interleague option and play 16 divisional games and two more against teams from the other division in a rotation, or however they decide. They could also keep it at 20 games, play the 8 divisional home-and-homes, and four rotating opponents from the other side. That would make it so everyone would play everyone once every two to three years, and everyone gets every school at home ever four to five years.

Promotion/Relegation/Rotation: Having promotion and relegation is an interesting concept, but doesn’t require divisions to be broken down in this fashion, which is more designed for nostalgia and intrigue. The 9th spot in Division A, given to Virginia Tech in our scenario, could be rotated around to different schools each year, but it wouldn’t be as clean as the proposed setup.

In-Season Tournament: The NBA has gone this route, could the ACC? An in-season tournament where schools play teams in the other division could be intriguing, would create more cross-division matchups, and give schools more opportunities for resume-enhancing victories. We don’t have the brain power to figure out exactly how this would work, however, especially considering travel and other considerations.

This proposal doesn’t fix all of the league’s reputation and metric problems. But it does potentially make it a more fun product for the fanbases and does provide opportunities to get more interesting scenarios in the season. Wild card games would be a wrinkle late in the season that could potentially be a big boost to bubble teams, and would draw a lot of eyeballs towards the conference just before March Madness, as you get good-on-good games in the cross-division matchups. And the division home-and-homes may not be perfect for every team in the conference, but most of the old ACC would probably be happy to do it rather than playing more games against BC or Syracuse or Louisville.

For UVa fans, this would be fun. You’d get the old ACC feeling back, keep the home-and-home with the Hokies, and would get cross-division games that could be helpful for tournament resumes and, if UVa is winning, would be fun matchups against quality teams on the other side of the aisle.

Commissioner Phillips: Feel free to bring this up on the league’s next call.