The 2019-20 campaign for ACC basketball began with a round of conference contests, but the league is better served by not repeating this again.
ACC basketball commenced in earnest this week with a new wrinkle, as the league kicked off the 2019-20 term with a handful of conference affairs. The only Atlantic Coast Conference member that didn’t participate in this format is No. 4 Duke, which squeaked by No. 3 Kansas in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Why the ACC elected to put forth league match-ups at the onset of the current stanza is, in my estimation, fairly simple. For one, the conference has expanded its schedule to 20 encounters per school, and the league also wanted to bolster its new ACC Network.
My assumption is that having conference duels over the past few days would assist in higher ratings for the ACC Network, and perhaps, as a result, exert some pressure on cable and communications companies that aren’t presently offering the ACC Network to eventually do so, if enough subscribers voice their displeasure.
I recognize that collegiate hoops, and college football to boot, are multibillion-dollar businesses, but, frankly, these league battles didn’t get me all that excited.
Part of the issue is that I’m used to seeing non-conference tilts when college basketball is first underway. I absolutely hate when powerhouse programs go toe to toe with cupcakes, and I credit the Blue Devils for suiting up versus the Jayhawks on opening night. It’s one thing to compete against an enticing out-of-conference foe, which I admire, but I found it fairly weird to witness ACC groups playing one another.
Furthermore, the actual slate of meetings seemed rather pedestrian. Sure, Pittsburgh secured a solid home win versus Florida State, Georgia Tech upset N.C. State on the road, No. 11 Virginia pasted Syracuse at the Carrier Dome, and freshman sensation Cole Anthony possessed a special debut for No. 9 North Carolina.
Rivalry contests, understandably, are saved for later in the calendar, and it’s entirely feasible that the ACC may not amount to the dominant league in 2019-20 that it has displayed in other recent terms.
Scheduling logistics is undoubtedly challenging, but it’s my contention that the ACC ought to have these conference clashes beginning in late November or early December if that’s realistic.
To that end, Orange head coach Jim Boeheim told Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, “You never want to play these league games early. It’s stupid. It’s just a money grab. They got scheduled games for TV, for the TV contracts so you’ve got to play games early. And then somebody had the brilliant idea of open up the first game with a league game. I just don’t think it’s good, I don’t think it’s smart. You want to build up to the league. The league’s the most important thing, so why would you play the first game of the year in the league? Makes no sense to me.”
I wholeheartedly concur with Boeheim about the significance of building up to the conference action. Full disclosure, I’m a Syracuse alum, but I agree with him regardless. Some folks may say that Boeheim has sour grapes going on since the Orange fell flat against the Cavaliers, the defending national champions. Maybe. But the larger context here is that it doesn’t feel quite right starting the stanza with ACC bouts, and I hope that what transpired this week is merely a one-time event.