Proposed Basketball Scheduling for ACC: Updated
Update: With Credit to Bleedinorange44, and some further analysis by the author, here is a revised version!
With the outstanding ratings being drawn by Syracuse-Duke, the question that begs is whether the ACC can configure the schedule to allow Duke-Syracuse to play annually, without interfering with other obligations and rivalries. The Confidential has a proposal.
1. As is now, you play every team once.
2. You play four teams twice. A home and home.
3. Each team has four “rivals,” for lack of a better term. The goal is history, regionality, and some sense of balance, if possible. You want all of the elite teams having one lesser opponent. And all of the lesser opponents having at least one elite team.
Here are the proposed rivalries:
Duke: UNC, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Clemson
UNC: Duke, Virginia, NC State, Notre Dame
Virginia: Virginia Tech, UNC, NC State, Pitt
Syracuse: Duke, Boston College, Pitt, Louisville
Notre Dame: Pitt, Boston College, Wake Forest, UNC
BC: Notre Dame, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech
Wake Forest: Duke, NC State, BC, Notre Dame
NC State: UNC, Wake Forest, Virginia, Va Tech
Virginia Tech: Virginia, Miami, Pitt, NC State
Pitt: ND, Syracuse, Virginia, Va Tech
Florida State: Miami, Ga Tech, Clemson, Louisville
Miami: FSU, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Louisville
Ga Tech: FSU, Boston College, Clemson, Louisville
Louisville: FSU, Miami, Ga Tech, Syracuse
Clemson: FSU, Miami, Ga Tech, Duke
4. UPDATE: Notre Dame is now fixed–has North Carolina as a match! Notre Dame has it easy, but there is just no other way to make it work. The football schools generally have it pretty well–but that is the thanks for being big money generators on the gridiron. Every team plays every team, so it is not THAT big a deal really.
If anyone has any MORE ideas to tweak it, go for it. If I made any mistakes–sorry, did not spend hours on it. Idea went from “idea” to “post” pretty quickly.
The Confidential 
One of the best rivalries in the real Big East was Louisville-Syracuse. They need to be featured in the ACC. Think about how awesome rivalry week is when Louisville-Syracuse compliments the Duke-North Carolina game. It will be a great show case for all 4 schools and flex the muscle of the ACC.
I tend to agree. But the ACC cannot schedule so that only the elite teams play each other twice. Not fair to the elite teams or the non-elite teams, who need to have big draws visiting their arenas for ticket sales and strength of schedule.
So, for Syracuse, it came down to Duke or Louisville, not both. I could see using Louisville just based on history. Although long-term, that rivalry means more with Pitino-Boeheim than the schools itself. No answers.
The good thing is that every team always faces every team at least once. Only issue is who gets played twice.
I agree with SU/Louisville. How’s this for a fix? Take Va Tech off SU’s list of 4 (former rivals in football, not basketball), put Va Tech on UNC’s list of 4 (gives UNC less of a gauntlet and makes some sense geographically and replaces Va Tech’s elite opponent with another elite opponent) and replace UNC with SU on Louisville’s list of 4 (still gives Louisville an awfully easy 3 of 4 but it wouldn’t change anything else on the board and it guarantees 2 SU/UL games a year).
Is fair to have Duke & Syracuse playing 2 elite teams? Seems to me that it should be just Duke vs NC & Syracuse vs Louisville. Also if you have ever seen a Louisville vs ND game then i dont know how you can keep them apart, overtime is the norm between them with close margins.
Maybe
Yikes…Syracuse plays Duke, Pitt, AND Louisville 2x’s per year? I suppose if you want to be the best you have to beat the best, but that’s ridiculous.