Syracuse Basketball: Amid realignment, should ACC focus more on hoops?

When Syracuse basketball moved from the Big East Conference to the Atlantic Coast Conference during the 2013-14 campaign, it didn’t surprise me, but it did sadden me.

I attended Syracuse University from 1996 until 2000, and the Big East was all I ever knew. What’s more, since its move to the ACC, Syracuse basketball has struggled through many regular seasons, while making a few extended Big Dance runs.

At present, conference realignment is constantly being discussed and speculated. The ACC isn’t going away anytime soon but also doesn’t have the same amount of strength as the Big Ten Conference and the Southeastern Conference, which are adding UCLA/USC and Oklahoma/Texas, respectively, to their membership ranks in the future.

The Big Ten recently inked a massive new media rights agreement worth billions. It will be interesting to see if that league, and/or the SEC, end up poaching various ACC schools, including Notre Dame, which is an independent (and currently stinky) team in football but is an ACC member in other sports.

CBS Sports recently polled numerous college coaches across a range of leagues, asking them which conference they believe will be the best in hoops moving forward amid all of the realignment stuff.

That got me thinking about Syracuse basketball and its ACC peers.

Not surprisingly, in that poll, the Big Ten came out on top, followed by the SEC, the Big 12 Conference, the ACC and then the Big East.

"One quote in the CBS Sports article from a college coach really intrigued me. It read, “Even with the amount of money pouring into the SEC and Big Ten, I think the ACC will focus more on basketball and continue to be successful – much like the new Big East has. That is … until they all move to the new SEC/Big Ten.”"

Now, in recent years, ACC member Clemson has won the grand prize in football more than once. And the Tigers are likely to be a serious contender for a College Football Playoff berth during the current season.

But beyond Clemson, are other ACC football squads going to make a run at the CFP? That remains to be seen. Of course, it’s not like the ACC can just “give up” on football, because there’s too much money in TV contracts.

However, this topic did get me thinking as to whether the ACC can better compete with the Big Ten and the SEC, in the larger context of major Division I collegiate athletics, if it does focus more of its efforts, resources, etc., on basketball.

The dilemma, though, is that football brings substantial revenue to the Orange and its ACC peers via football, and while March Madness is awesome, can it really compete with football TV deals? That football money (and basketball, too) helps SU Athletics fund its Olympic sports, which is really, really important.

Dating back to the 2015 NCAA Tournament, three of the last seven national champions in hoops have come from the ACC – Duke in 2015, North Carolina in 2017 and Virginia in 2019. The Big 12 has the two most recent champs (Baylor in 2021 and Kansas in 2022), while the Big East’s Villanova cut down the nets in 2016 and 2018.

Heck, even a Syracuse basketball squad that has struggled in regular seasons lately went to the Final Four in 2016, as well as the Sweet 16 in 2018 and 2021.

In a recent story from ESPN’s Andrea Adelson and David M. Hale, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said in part that he felt “really, really good about the trajectory that we’re on.”

The 2022 football season is young, and in the latest Associated Press top-25 poll, five ACC teams are ranked. Syracuse football had gotten off to a 2-0 start this term as it prepared to host Big Ten group Purdue on Saturday, Sept. 17.

"Another coach said in the CBS Sports story regarding college basketball, “I think the ACC will always be the best. It has tradition and love for basketball from fan bases to administrators. That league invests and knows basketball is king.”"

The last part of that quote is important to me. Stick to your strengths and what you do best, right?