18 ACC games?

[Bluedawg]

When officials from the league's 12 schools and those from the Greensboro front-office headquarters began their annual spring meetings Sunday in Amelia Island, Fla., proposals to increase the men's conference basketball schedule from 16 to 18 games and the football in-league schedule from eight to nine games were likely to be the most important topics on the three-day agenda.

http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/story/1069260.html

Would expanding to 18 league games in basketball and 9 [maybe 10] in football be helpful or harmful to the league?

[Bluedawg]

...I shoud have asked that you explain your answer.

[blazindw]

Would expanding to 18 league games in basketball and 9 [maybe 10] in football be helpful or harmful to the league?

I'm split as to expanding the basketball season. It would just give all the teams two more games to beat each other up. While some will say it's two more games to play more teams into the tournament, it's also two more games to play teams out of the tourney. The key I think is nonconference games and scheduling some strength with those games that you can. With two more conference games, you have fewer opportunities to schedule opponents you normally wouldn't and less control over who you play. Our schedule is generally pretty tough year in and year out, but many of the other teams should stop scheduling D-2 and very low D-1 teams and start scheduling more mid-majors. Those will be better quality wins which will be enough to get more teams NCAA bids.

Football - keep it the way it is. The ACC already has locked bowl bids provided that enough teams are bowl-eligible. Expanding to a 9-10 game schedule would do nothing to the number of teams that are eligible for bowls, which is the important thing. The only reason the ACC would expand is under the assumption that it provides a better chance for the ACC to get more than one team into the BCS bowls. But, we can have no more than 2, so it doesn't really make any sense to expand to try and get one more team onto the BCS guestlist.

[EarlJam]

...I shoud have asked that you explain your answer.

It is not too late to ask us to explain.

-EarlJam

[CDu]

We've heard the rationale for why 18 games is bad for the conference (i.e., takes away sure wins and adds sure losses). But there are some who feel that adding two more games is good for the conference. I'd like to hear their rationale.

[monkey]

I don't know about "helpful" because it might not be for NCAA bid purposes, since the other "power" conferences seem to be outdrawing us on a regular basis come tournement time in terms of number of bids on average and they don't have the balanced round robin schedules - but it sure would be more fun for ACC fans and more fair come ACC tourney time. So I voted "helpful" because I'm in favor of it.

[tux]

I'm in favor of more conference games. I don't really buy the argument that an 18 game schedule would reduce the number of bids because I'm not sure we could actually get less bids than we are getting right now. So, how could it hurt? Conference games are usually the most fun to watch and the most meaningful, IMO. So, why would a fan want less of those types of games? There are many factors that push a bubble team one way or the other, and from what I read, politics seem about as important as anything else. I would predict about the same pattern of bid numbers with a 16,18, or even a round robin schedule.

[SilkyJ]

No expansion for football.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3394329

[Matches]

I miss the double round-robin terribly, but I think 16 conference games is enough. The ACC season is pretty grueling as is; I don't really want to see it get any longer.

Can we PLEASE lose this "rivalry" with Maryland and play State and Wake twice every year, though?