The Atlantic Coast Conference just became one of the best conferences in college sports history. With the acceptance of Pitt and Syracuse to the ACC from the Big East, the conference now boasts 14 school’s. This will undoubtedly change the basic concept of the two conferences forever. The ACC will go from a 12-team layout, to 14 teams total in the powerful conference.
“The Atlantic Coast Conference announced Sunday that its council of presidents unanimously voted to accept Pittsburgh and Syracuse, a move that increases its membership to 14 and sends the Big East scrambling — again — to replace two of its cornerstone programs.”
With this move, the Big East obviously loses some luster from a basketball standpoint. Syracuse and Pittsburgh are perennial powerhouses, that will be loaded into already the best conference in college basketball, as well as, an up-and-coming football conference. The loss of these two huge programs to the Big East will spread greater parity throughout the conference of 14 teams, a more realistic schedule for team’s in the conference.
“We are constantly evaluating the competitive landscape to ensure the conference’s viability for years to come, and this, I believe, has staying power.” -ACC commissioner John Swofford.
The ACC will become the greatest conference in college basketball history, period. You are already talking about the best conference in the land for years. With such powers as Duke, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Maryland and Florida State…adding arguably the two best Big East teams to the ACC, has made this conference inhumane.
Hall of Fame Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told ESPN.com’s Andy Katz that adding Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the ACC would be ”a coup for the conference.”
“Texas A&M already has announced its intention to join the Southeastern Conference, leaving the future of the Big 12 in doubt. And the board of regents at Oklahoma and Texas are meeting Monday to discuss the possibility of the universities leaving that conference.” -ESPN’s Bryan Burwell
This is a monumental move in the college athletic landscape for the foreseeable future. With the move of Pitt and Syracuse to the ACC, this will ensure the powerful school’s becoming mightier, while the smaller school’s becoming increasingly weak over time. Either way, this is extremely exciting to see if you’re a college sports fans.
The ramifications for the Big East are great. This will complicate matters for the conference, as different numbers of its schools play football and basketball, and they often have different ideas for the future. The non-football programs that include Georgetown, Marquette and Villanova make it one of the nation’s strongest basketball conference. The other football-playing teams are Connecticut, Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, West Virginia and Rutgers.
