ACC coaches wary of more realignment to come

• Jeff Borzello, ESPN Personnel WriterOct 26, 2023, 12:08 AM ET

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  • Joined ESPN in 2014.
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— In his very first time attending to the media because the Atlantic Coast Conference enacted early September to include California, Stanford and SMU, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips stated Wednesday he has actually”never ever been more bullish”about the health of the league. “I’ve never ever been more confident in the league than what we simply went through over the last three or four months, “Phillips said at the ACC Tipoff.” Where is the health of the league? The league is healthy. The league is healthy. At the end of the day, my job is to run the ACC and ensure it’s as healthy for the next 70 years as it’s been the last 70 years. I can not control individual feelings on campuses, however we have dealt with head-on anything that our campuses have suggested. I feel terrific. I actually do. I can’t say that I felt that method a year ago.”

It was a tumultuous summer for the ACC, with Florida State making it clear it would think about leaving the ACC due to the league’s profits distribution model. FSU president Richard McCullough told his board of trustees in early August that “FSU will need to at some point think about very seriously leaving the ACC unless there were a transformation to the revenue distribution.”

After the Big 10 and Big 12 made transfer to bolster their respective memberships and in turn decimate the Pac-12, the ACC picked up the two most practical staying pieces of the Pac-12 in Cal and Stanford and also poached SMU from the AAC. The three schools will sign up with for the 2024-25 year.Editor’s Picks 2 Related”I can not manage private choices on campus, and we can’t,”Phillips said.”We have absolutely listened. I’ve attempted to be a truly excellent listener. It hasn’t fallen on deaf ears. We have actually been proactive. The circulation of dollars with success initiative belongs to what I’m hearing, and perhaps a bulk of what I’m speaking with some of the schools that have actually been singing about it. Getting to 18 secures the ACC, now and into the future. Schools will eventually decide that they want.”The guys’s basketball coaches in the league were on

board with the ACC’s additions while likewise remaining careful of what else there is to come in college realignment.”We had to do something as a league to ensure our stability,”Miami coach Jim Larranaga said. “How much more alignment modifications will there be? I’m thinking it’s not over. There’s going to be some other moves taking place. This year, next year or in the next five. “”You understood there was a possibility of it taking place, “Duke coach Jon Scheyer said.”

No matter what, there belongs of you that has to take a step back and truly embrace it. It’s various. And various doesn’t mean it’s wrong. … Not doing anything was not the answer. The ACC needed to do something. I was pleased by it.”For anyone to think this is the end of adjustment, you’re deceiving yourself. I do not feel that way at all. We can be as great as any conference. I’m aware that more than likely down the road there are modifications to be made. “Virginia coach Tony Bennett coached in the Pac-10 at Washington State, so he has a more powerful familiarity with

two of the schools getting in the ACC.”This is more of a football choice, viewership and cash, “Bennett stated.” You’re sticking your head in the sand if you can’t acknowledge that. Everybody is trying to figure [things] out. NIL, transfer website, [realignment], whatever is an experiment and how are you going to do it. However due to the fact that I remained in the league, I respect those organizations, but I certainly wonder how this will all play out. There’s some stuff I sure hope they have actually thought through and gone through.”Bennett said he wasn’t stressed over the stability of the ACC progressing, but he said there are unanswered questions

when it concerns realignment.”I’m not worried about Virginia and its basketball program, but you do wonder for how long you’re going to be in this location or that place.

No matter what any person states, it’s what occurs, “he said.” You can predict, you can anticipate,’ Oh, we’re great. ‘But I make sure that’s what a lot of the Pac-12 schools thought.

That didn’t rather occur that way.”Phillips also stated Wednesday that all 18 groups in the new-look ACC may not play in the postseason conference tournaments in either males’s or ladies’s basketball.” I don’t know that we would welcome 18 groups to an ACC men’s or females’s basketball championship,”he said.”I’m unsure we’re going to do– we’ll do what the subscription wants. I do not seem like that’s something that we should do. I’ve informed them that. I’m not speaking out of turn. I think you have actually got to earn your method to play in I think the most prestigious postseason basketball competitions in the nation, and if you don’t get to a specific limit, then you simply don’t make it that year … I’m not extremely thinking about adding one additional day. However we’ll listen to the subscription and see what they need to say.”