NC State will play home and home series with the other three teams that comprise the top of the projected ACC standings next season – North Carolina, Duke and Florida State. Â Hopefully the Wolfpack will do that with the services of a fourth McDonalds All-American (link).
Great blog post of interest linked here from ESPN’s Andy Katz.
NC State coach Mark Gottfried heads to the ACC meetings Sunday in Amelia Island, Fla., looking to question next season’s ACC schedule.
“I traded Virginia Tech for Duke twice and Clemson for Florida State twice,” said Gottfried, who will also play North Carolina twice. “TV looked at our team and thought we’d be good.”
And he’s right. NC State is projected to be an ACC favorite after its Sweet 16 finish. Gottfried’s problem is looking at his overall schedule and seeing the weight of the road games. Strip the conference name out, and the Wolfpack will be going to Duke, North Carolina, Florida State, likely Michigan (Gottfried said) for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, to Puerto Rico for a tournament, and versus Connecticut at the Jimmy V Classic in Madison Square Garden. Of course, the home schedule will include Duke, North Carolina, Florida State and a nonconference game versus Stanford, so that’s not too shabby, either.
The problem is the league probably didn’t have a choice in scheduling for 2012-13.
The ACC decided to go from 16 to 18 games for the ’12-13 season. The decision was made before the league knew if Pitt and Syracuse were joining the conference. Now they’re not for next season, but the anticipation is that both schools will be in the ACC in the fall of 2013. But that’s not official, and there is still technically a chance the move could be put off for another year if the Big East makes the two schools hold true to the 27-month window, even though Temple, Memphis, Central Florida, SMU and Houston are entering the Big East for all sports, including basketball, in 2013.
As a result, the ACC remains at 12 teams for next season and thus had to hold off on a 14-team rotation schedule. Instead, the league consulted with its TV partner (ESPN) for the best matchups but decided on the final schedule on its own.
The full ACC schedule has not yet been released.
Robbi Pickeral has more linked here.
Other relevant data points from these articles worth highlighting are as follows:
- The conference schedule will start in January with no need to stretch into December.
- The next three ACC Tournaments are scheduled for glamorous Greensboro (can we not move at least one of these to Charlotte?)
- Pitt’s Jamie Dixon and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim will be in attendance at the ACC meetings, but not the following weekend at the Big East meetings.
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