With college athletics experiencing seismic shifts in every area due to the transfer portal and NIL, men’s basketball scheduling is going through changes of its own.
That’s particularly true in the ACC this offseason as coaches and administrators work to increase the number of teams the league places in future NCAA Tournaments.
The last two seasons, the quad system designed around the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ratings left the ACC wanting. Only five league teams, out of 15 schools, made the 68-team tournament in each of the past two seasons.
Although marquee nonconference matchups have always been played, for decades ACC coaches didn’t have to rely on them to gain the type of Quad 1 wins needed to impress the NCAA selection committee.
That’s not been the case the past two seasons, as weaker teams in the middle and bottom of the conference have weighed down the entire group.
So, as Duke coach Jon Scheyer worked with his administration on not only this season’s schedule but future years, he factored finding possible Quad 1 games outside of league play into his thinking.
This season, the Blue Devils have Arizona coming to Cameron Indoor Stadium on Nov. 10 before heading to Chicago to play Michigan State in the Champions Classic in their third game of the season.
Duke plays at Arkansas in the ACC-SEC Challenge and, although all details have yet to be finalized, a game with Baylor at Madison Square Garden is in the works for Dec. 20.
“Trying to mix that in a little bit more is something I think we’ll look to do,” Scheyer said, “because you want to make sure you have opportunities for those Quad 1 wins.”
Resume building
Last season, the ACC champion Blue Devils played 15 games that qualified as NET Quad 1 wins, meaning they were home games against the top 30, road games against the top 75 or neutral site games against the top 50. Miami, which made the Final Four out of the ACC, also played 15.
North Carolina played 13, losing 11 of them, and missed the NCAA Tournament field.
By comparison, Texas played 25 Quad 1 games while fellow Big 12 member Kansas played 24. Baylor played 17, going 14-3.
Kansas earned a No. 1 seed in its NCAA Tournament regional, while Texas was a No. 2 seed and Baylor a No. 3.
No ACC team was awarded a seed higher than Virginia’s No. 4 seed. Duke was a No. 5 seed despite being the ACC champion.
Over the past two seasons, the ACC found itself in trouble before its league games even began in December. Too many ACC teams suffered nonconference losses to teams from lower-rated leagues or teams from strong leagues that weren’t very good.
Because of that, ACC teams struggled to climb up the NET ratings into positions to make their games fall into Quad 1 or Quad 2. Plus, teams like Louisville and Florida State struggled so badly their NET ratings were in the 200s so games against them were Quad 4 results. Some games against Notre Dame (184) and Georgia Tech (177) were in that worst quad as well.
“You don’t anticipate that you could get four more Quad 4 opportunities in the ACC,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said, whose Wolfpack made the NCAA Tournament despite having as many games that were Quad 4 (10) as it did Quad 1.
Just win, baby
Pittsburgh coach Jeff Capel, who led the Panthers to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2016 last season, was previously one of those teams that presented a Quad 4 game. That changed last season and, as he looks to keep that going, nonconference games grow in importance.
“My hope is that all of us are better,” Capel said. “We’ve certainly been in that position. My first four years we were maybe one of the teams that was dragging the league down. So like it was talked about, you’ve got to win. You’ve got to figure out ways to win, win early and win a lot.”
The situation has been discussed among coaches at league meetings, with NCAA vice president of men’s basketball Dan Gavitt speaking to the group to explain how the system works. But his overall message was what the coaches were already striving for — wins on the court.
“You can schedule hard, like we all need to do to help improve our league,” Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes said, “but you have to win those games. I think that’s where we’re at right now.”
Two seasons ago, in Forbes’ second season at Wake, his team went 13-5 in ACC play but wasn’t selected to the 2022 NCAA Tournament because, despite going 10-1 in nonconference play, its slate of non-ACC foes gave it a weak strength of schedule. The lack of opportunities for Quad 1 games in ACC play sealed Wake’s fate.
This season, Forbes said he has Wake Forest playing Georgia and Rutgers this season as part of multi-year contracts. The Demon Deacons play Florida in the ACC-SEC Challenge.
That’s in addition to being part of the Charleston Classic with Houston, St. John’s, LSU, Dayton, Towson, North Texas and Utah.
“Winning in nonconference is more important than just the schedule,” Boston College coach Earl Grant said. “If you can schedule in a way that you can get two or three Quad 1s, I think that’s even better. But just winning is good.”
Last season, Clemson was 14-6 in the ACC with one win each over Duke and Pittsburgh plus three wins over N.C. State. The Blue Devils, Panthers and Wolfpack made the NCAA Tournament while the Tigers, who split their measly 10 games in Quad 1, went to the NIT.
Clemson lost games to South Carolina (11-12) and Loyola of Chicago (10-21) in nonconference play and suffered an ACC loss at last-place Louisville (4-28). That caused the Tigers to finish No. 67 in the NET.
Those losses were bad but Clemson not having a chance to make up for them by collecting Quad 1 wins in ACC play left the Tigers fighting an uphill battle.
Strategic scheduling
One thing that could help the Tigers this season is their ACC-SEC Challenge game at Alabama. The Crimson Tide has made the past three NCAA Tournaments while Clemson last played in the tournament in 2021 and has been in just two of the last 11 tournaments.
When ESPN works with the leagues to pair up matchups for challenge events, they try to create competitive, interesting games by creating games between teams of equal stature. The teams traditionally at the top of the league play the teams from the top of the other league.
That makes it easy for teams like Duke, North Carolina or Virginia, for example, to get challenge games that are likely to be Quad 1 games. But the teams that could be on the tournament bubble, like Clemson, don’t normally get such matchups.
That changed somewhat with this initial ACC-SEC Challenge and the Clemson-Alabama game is a prime example. Coming off its Final Four run, Miami is going to Kentucky, rather than ESPN sending Duke or UNC there for the blue-blood game many would relish.
Duke still gets a tough game at Arkansas while UNC plays at home against a Tennessee team that made last season’s Sweet 16 and has played in the last five NCAA Tournaments under coach Rick Barnes.
The point is, teams like Duke, UNC and Virginia have the gravitas to line up big-time nonconference games.
Duke’s home game with Arizona this season is the first of a two-game contract that has the Blue Devils playing at Arizona next season.
Scheyer said discussions are already underway to find more games like that for future seasons to ensure his Blue Devils have opportunities to win big games with the NCAA Tournament in mind.
“Going forward,” Scheyer said, “I think you’ll see even more of a change with how we do things. Not this upcoming year, but in the following years because that’s when we have the flexibility to do that more.”
