Jeff Borzello, ESPN Personnel Scribbler
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — In his first occasion addressing the media because the Atlantic Coast Convention voted in early September so as to add California, Stanford and SMU, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips stated Wednesday he has “never been more bullish” concerning the fitness of the league.
“I’ve never been more confident in the league than what we just went through over the last three or four months,” Phillips stated on 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 make sure it’s as healthy for the next 70 years as it’s been the last 70 years. I cannot control individual feelings on campuses, but we have addressed head-on anything that our campuses have indicated. I feel great. I really do. I can’t say that I felt that way a year ago.”
It was once a tumultuous summer season for the ACC, with Florida State making it unclouded it could imagine retirement the ACC because of the league’s income distribution fashion. FSU president Richard McCullough informed his board of trustees in early August that “FSU will have to at some point consider very seriously leaving the ACC unless there were a radical change to the revenue distribution.”
Then the Fat Ten and Fat 12 made strikes to reinforce their respective memberships and in flip decimate the Pac-12, the ACC picked up the 2 maximum viable too much items of the Pac-12 in Cal and Stanford and in addition poached SMU from the AAC. The 3 faculties will secured for the 2024-25 occasion.
“I cannot control individual decisions on campus, and we can’t,” Phillips stated. “We have absolutely listened. I’ve tried to be a really good listener. It hasn’t fallen on deaf ears. We’ve been proactive. The distribution of dollars with success initiative is part of what I’m hearing, and maybe a majority of what I’m hearing from some of the schools that have been vocal about it. Getting to 18 protects the ACC, now and into the future. Schools will ultimately make the decisions that they want.”
The boys’s basketball coaches within the league had been on board with the ACC’s additions hour additionally too much cautious of what else there’s to come back in school realignment.
“We had to do something as a league to ensure our stability,” Miami tutor Jim Larranaga stated. “How much more alignment changes will there be? I’m guessing it’s not over. There’s going to be some other moves happening. This year, next year or in the next five.”
“You knew there was a chance of it happening,” Duke tutor Jon Scheyer stated. “No matter what, there’s a part of you that has to take a step back and really embrace it. It’s different. And different doesn’t mean it’s not right. … Doing nothing was not the answer. The ACC had to do something. I was pleased by it.
“For any one to suppose that is the tip of realignment, you’re fooling your self. I don’t really feel that approach in any respect. We will be as excellent as any convention. I’m smartly conscious that possibly ailing the street there are adjustments to be made.”
Virginia tutor Tony Bennett coached within the Pac-10 at Washington State, so he has a more potent familiarity with two of the universities coming into the ACC.
“That is extra of a soccer choice, viewership and cash,” Bennett said. “You’re sticking your head within the sand if you’ll be able to’t recognize that. Everyone is attempting to determine [things] out. NIL, switch portal, [realignment], the whole lot is an experiment and how can you do it. However as a result of I used to be within the league, I recognize the ones establishments, however I undoubtedly surprise how this will likely all play games out. There’s some stuff I positive hope they’ve idea via and long past via.”
Bennett said he wasn’t worried about the stability of the ACC moving forward, but he said there are unanswered questions when it comes to realignment.
“I’m now not frightened about Virginia and its basketball program, however you do surprise how lengthy you’re getting to be on this playground or that playground. It doesn’t matter what any one says, it’s what occurs,” he said.
“You’ll venture, you’ll be able to forecast, ‘Oh, we’re fantastic.’ However I’m positive that’s what a quantity of the Pac-12 faculties idea. That didn’t rather occur that approach.”
Phillips also said Wednesday that all 18 teams in the new-look ACC might not play in the postseason conference tournaments in either men’s or women’s basketball.
“I don’t know that we might ask over 18 groups to an ACC males’s or ladies’s basketball championship,” he said. “I’m now not positive we’re getting to do — we’ll do what the club needs. I don’t really feel like that’s one thing that we will have to do. I’ve informed them that. I’m now not talking out of flip. I believe you’ve were given to earn your strategy to play games in I believe essentially the most prestigious postseason basketball tournaments within the nation, and for those who don’t get to a definite threshold, after you simply don’t form it that occasion … I’m now not overly focused on including one backup age. However we’ll concentrate to the club and notice what they have got to mention.”
