ACC Announces New Division and Scheduling Format

The Atlantic Coast Conference released the schedule and division format for when Pitt and Syracuse join the conference. The expanded 14 team conference will continue with the Atlantic and Coastal divisions that were previously in place for football and add Syracuse to the Atlantic division and Pitt to the Coastal division. The league will play a nine game conference schedule with each team playing its divisional foe once and having one primary crossover partner each year; Pitt and Syracuse will play each other every year. The remaining two slots will be filled with rotating opponents from the opposite division.  Here is the new breakdown:

Atlantic:
Boston College
Clemson
Florida State
Maryland
NC State
Syracuse
Wake Forest

Coastal:
Duke
Georgia Tech
Miami
North Carolina
Pitt
Virginia
Virginia Tech

Basketball will consist of an 18 game schedule; each team will play one primary partner twice a year and every other league team four times over a three-year cycle. Pitt was named Maryland’s primary partner. The other pairings are Virginia - Virginia Tech, Syracuse - Boston College, Duke - North Carolina, North Carolina State - Wake Forest, Florida State - Miami, and Clemson - Georgia Tech.

My thoughts:
As a Pitt fan I am happy to see them placed in the Coastal division with some of their more traditional opponents, Virginia Tech and Miami and like how the cross-over rival will be Syracuse. A nine game league schedule will make it difficult to play strong out of conference opponents each year.  I am hoping that this will not disrupt the annual game between Pitt and Notre Dame.  Leaving the Big East for basketball will be a little sad due to intense rivalries that were developed with UConn, Georgetown, and Villanova, but it will be nice to watch Pitt play Duke and UNC every year. Having to play Maryland twice every year is a little disappointing. I would much rather see Syracuse twice instead, but I suppose the ACC needed to give Boston College some sort of rival being that they are so isolated. I am looking forward to the move and hoping it happens sooner than later.