Commissioner Jim Phillips: ACC Tournament Models, Locations With Expansion

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — At the start of Day 2 of the ACC Tipoff in Charlotte, N.C., ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips addressed the media for the first time since the conference announced its decision to expand in September, adding Cal, Stanford and SMU.

Here are a few notes and takeaways from his session:

Win to get in?

Starting in 2025, the ACC men’s and women’s basketball tournaments could be win-to-get-in. With the league expanding to 18 teams for all sports other than football (which has 17), it would need to add an extra day to the tournaments to fit in every school.

The ACC has slowly grown over the years, from the original eight members in 1953 — Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia and Wake Forest, along with Maryland and South Carolina — to the additions of Georgia Tech and Florida State in 1979 and 1991, respectively. There were 11 schools after Miami and Virginia Tech joined in 2004, and Boston College made it an even 12 in 2005.

The ACC Tournament was already a four-day event, however, and simply added more games on Wednesday, Day 1 of the event. Things changed after 2013, however, when Maryland departed and Notre Dame, Pitt and Syracuse joined. And until September, Louisville was the most recent addition in 2014. As a result, the basketball tournaments grew to five days, from Tuesday through Saturday.

Starting next season, it will be an 18-team basketball conference, tied for the most members with the Big Ten. How will that change the structure of the sacred men’s and women’s postseason tournaments, which have been played since 1954 and 1978, respectively?

“I don’t know that we would invite 18 teams to an ACC men’s or women’s basketball championship,” Phillips said on Wednesday. “I’m not sure we’re going to do — we’ll do what the membership wants. I don’t feel like that’s something that we should do. I’ve told them that. I’m not speaking out of turn.”

The ACC could opt for a 12-, 14- or 16-team tournament, keeping an even number while keeping the event under five days. It would be the first major conference to not include every member in the postseason basketball tournament, however. As of 2022-23, only the ASUN, America East, Ivy League, MAC, SWAC, Ohio Valley and Southland leave out some schools in their men’s basketball tournament.

As of last season, three ACC sports don’t include every member in the postseason tournament: women’s soccer, softball and baseball. Women’s soccer includes six of the 14 teams; for softball, it’s 10-of-13 while baseball is 12-of-14.

“I think you’ve got to earn your way to play in I think the most prestigious postseason basketball tournaments in the country, and if you don’t get to a certain threshold, then you just don’t make it that year,” Phillips said. “I’m not overly interested in adding one additional day. But we’ll listen to the membership and see what they have to say.”

Charlotte or bust?

Phillips did not sound confident that the future of the ACC women’s basketball tournament was in Greensboro. Dating back to 2000, the event has been at the Greensboro Coliseum all but once.

The challenge now is also utilizing Charlotte, the conference’s new home. With a capacity of 19,000, the Spectrum Center might be too big. The smarter option could be the Bojangles Coliseum, which seats about 8,600, which is a few minutes southeast of the city off U.S. Route 74.

The men’s tournament rotates locations, though. In the last decade, it’s been in Greensboro five times, Brooklyn three times and Charlotte and Washington, D.C., once each. Could a rotation of some sort be in play for the women’s event?

“Greensboro has been a wonderful home for the women’s tournament and for the men’s tournament,” Phillips said. “We will certainly continue to populate Greensboro with our championship. But we’re in a new home, as well, in Charlotte, and we want to take advantage of this world-class city.

“I think what you’re going to see this fall is you’ll see an announcement that will take us maybe over the next three or four years with our basketball tournaments, as well as our Olympic sports.”

The men’s and women’s tournaments will be held in Washington, D.C., and Greensboro this season, respectively. Future plans have not been announced. Realignment could be a factor in those locations, too.

New scheduling models

The ACC will soon release its new football scheduling model, which the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s David Teel reported recently. With Cal, Stanford and SMU, the recently created 3-5-5 model will soon vanish after just one year of use.

Announced in June 2022, the format scheduled out games for the next four seasons, from 2023-26. Expansion changed that.

It’ll be a Big Ten-like model with protected rivalries — for some schools one or two; potentially none for others. The new schedule is expected to be released over the next few weeks.

Football travel, which Phillips discussed back in September, will consist of the 14 current ACC institutions traveling to California once every two years. Coming back the other way, Cal and Stanford will make 3-4 trips per year.

“We’ve had too many iterations to name the number of, but I feel really good about that, while also protecting some very important rivalry games and some rivalry games that we have with other conferences,” Phillips said. “It’s been the ultimate jigsaw puzzle, but feel very, very good about that.”