{"id":125369,"date":"2025-02-24T10:58:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T15:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=125369"},"modified":"2025-02-24T10:58:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T15:58:59","slug":"acc-big-east-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/24\/acc-big-east-merger\/","title":{"rendered":"ACC\/Big East Merger: How and Why it Should Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Krzyzewski recently took to his podcast to provide an interesting opinion on the state of the ACC. The legendary coach suggests that the ACC merge with the Big East<\/a> to create a mega-conference filled with legendary matchups. Some people may think this is an opinion for attention, but the idea truly makes sense.<\/p>\n

The Big East and ACC are slowly falling behind the other power conferences. However, a potential ACC\/Big East merger could pit some of the all-time greats against each other every single season. Here, we will discuss how and why this merger should happen and what it would mean for both conferences.<\/p>\n

ACC\/Big East Merger: How and Why it Should Happen<\/h2>\n

Why ACC\/Big East Merger Should Happen<\/h3>\n

The ACC is at an all-time low<\/a>. Upsets have destroyed their season, but they failed long before that. The ACC is incredibly top-heavy<\/a> with the bottom teams frequently struggling against mid-major opponents. Duke looks unbeatable at times<\/a>, Clemson still is the only team to top them<\/a>, and Louisville has turned things around and produced an incredible resume in their first year under Pat Kelsey<\/a>. After that, the falloff is significant. SMU, Wake Forest, and North Carolina all find themselves around the cutline for the NCAA tournament, while Pitt would likely need a miraculous run to save their season. About 2\/3 of the conference needs to win the ACC tournament to make the NCAA Tournament, that’s bad.<\/p>\n

The Big East could use the same help. In recent seasons, they’ve also struggled to pull together quality games. Depaul has been poor for years, Seton Hall has dramatically fallen off, and teams like Georgetown, Butler, and Providence continue to underperform. Villanova used to be a perennial powerhouse but has failed to produce quality results since Jay Wright retired. The two conferences rank well below the other power conferences in average NET<\/a> ranking, with the Big East in fourth at 74.91 and the ACC in fifth at 95.06 after the games on February 23rd<\/a>. The Big 12 is third at 47.44. The gap is significant. An ACC\/Big East merger could change that.<\/p>\n

How the Merger Should Happen<\/h3>\n

With 18 ACC teams and 11 Big East teams, a conference of 29 teams is out of the question. Having 29 teams in the conference would probably make these situations worse. To be successful, the ACC\/Big East merger would need to create more high-quality matchups, not more games between teams like Duke and Depaul. It makes sense to have it split into two sections: a top tier and a bottom tier. Think for a moment of a conference that has these 14 teams: Duke, Clemson, Louisville, North Carolina, Wake Forest, SMU, Pitt, St. John’s, UConn, Marquette, Creighton, Xavier, Villanova and Butler. There would be plenty of high-stakes matchups that would create an incredibly tough conference. Their average NET ranking would be 39.07, only behind the SEC.<\/p>\n

The other teams would create this bottom-tier conference. The best way to ensure that the conference stays competitive is by including a European-style relegation system. If a team like Virginia, who historically has been very good, dominates the competition in the lower division, then they are rewarded by moving up. Three or four teams from the top of the lower division move up each season, while the higher division sends down three or four teams. That number can vary, but it requires teams to keep up a consistent level of play against quality opponents to earn their spot at the top.<\/p>\n

The higher division would play each team in their division plus around five games against the lower division, while the lower division would play around four games against the higher division (it would vary because of the math and rivalries). This would allow the teams at the lower level to have quality games if they compete for an NCAA Tournament spot.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

An ACC\/Big East Merger could change the landscape of college basketball forever. This mega-conference would have annual matchups of Duke and UConn for example. The fierce competition would not only prepare each team for the NCAA Tournament but also allow each team to build an incredible resume. The higher division, if implemented this season, could have as many as ten or eleven teams make the NCAA Tournament. Each game would be of such high quality. The system would even hold teams accountable. One really bad year would punish a program, but it wouldn’t be that hard to return the following season. Money and TV rights obviously would play a factor, but it’s hard to argue that an ACC\/Big East merger like this wouldn’t bring in major money.<\/p>\n

The ACC needs help. The Big East needs help, too. Why not merge and make life far easier for themselves? This merger would do far more good for the conferences than bad. It seems so logical, but can they agree on something that works for both?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Rich Barnes-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Krzyzewski recently took to his podcast to provide an interesting opinion on the state of the ACC. The legendary coach suggests that the ACC merge with the Big East to create a mega-conference filled with legendary matchups. Some people may think this is an opinion for attention, but the idea truly makes sense. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5370,"featured_media":125395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,773],"tags":[3120,4447],"class_list":["post-125369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","tag-acc-basketball","tag-big-east-basketball"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125369"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125396,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125369\/revisions\/125396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}