Brian: Carolina March has an interesting proposal to improve on this year's lackluster ACC bowl games and weak non-conference hoops games over the Winter Break. Why not schedule the start of ACC basketball conference play to coincide with the conference's bowl schedule?
"The ACC has affiliations with bowl games in Miami (Orange), Atlanta (Peach), D.C. (Military), and Charlotte (Belk), all in or near the hometowns of ACC schools. They can easily schedule four "home" games to coincide with the bowls for Miami, Georgia Tech, Maryland, and any of the North Carolina schools. Now they can't leave the other slot open for whichever team makes the bowl game, but even so, an ACC game the night before the bowl game will draw a decent crowd. String them out one or two a night between Christmas and New Year's and fill in the other three games and standard home locations, and you've got an exciting countdown to the start of real basketball, and a nice counterpoint to the lesser bowl games."
You could probably add Orlando into the mix as well, alternating between Florida State and Miami. Maybe even the Pinstripe Bowl, when the ACC inevitably signs on with the New York City bowl when Syracuse and Pitt are added to the fold. #NewYorksCollegeTeam
Over the last week, while the ACC was participating in the various bowl games with conference tie-ins, here is the list of programs ACC hoops programs has faced: Alabama, Albany, Appalachian State, Auburn, Cornell, Delaware State, East Tennessee State, Elon, Fordham, Harvard, Maryland-Eastern Shore, Monmouth, Oklahoma State, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Samford, Temple, Towson, Western Carolina, Western Michigan and Yale.
Certainly not a murderer's row of hoops programs and a ton of largely uninteresting matchups. Granted the ACC has been hurt by the other power conferences moving the conference schedule up in a move to a 18-game sched, providing fewer non-conference scheduling options for the week between Christmas and New Years and the first week of January. With the move to 18 games next season, the ACC will likely move games up to start early January or even towards the end of December.
So what do you think about this idea? Would this create a little more buzz to the start of the conference's basketball schedule? Would you go out of your way to attend, say, N.C. State vs. Maryland in College Park the night before BC played in the Military Bowl? Your thoughts?
Jeff: No, I would not attend an NC State vs. Maryland game the night before the Military Bowl. It would either be a bad matchup, tough to get tickets to in advance, too hard to sell the wife on going or something else.But I do think it is a great idea.
Let's say Georgia Tech happened to have Virginia scheduled at home on December 30. Virginia vs. Georgia Tech suddenly becomes an easy sellout in a season that Georgia Tech will not sell out many games.
If BC were playing at Wake Forest the night before playing in the Charlotte Bowl I think that that trip, for true Superfans like ourselves, suddenly becomes much more appealing as it would be the only chance we'd ever have to see the Eagles play a conference basketball game and a football game on the same trip. When the ACC goes to 18 games, I would really like to see the give home games to Georgia Tech, Miami, Maryland, and the North Carolina schools to affiliate with these bowl games. The hope would be for it to work out and it might would even be a factor that would tip the scales for a bowl committee to pick a certain team when there is a a toss-up between two schools that travel similarly and have the same record.
I do not think the games would attract many casual ACC fans, but of course some ACC officials would take in both games and occasionally you would luck upon the perfect storm.