ACC Reportedly Returning to Nonconference Hoop Openers in 2020-21

After opening 2019-20 with conference games as a means of promoting the new ACC Network, the ACC will reportedly return to nonconference openers to start next season's basketball schedule

ACC commissioner John Swofford openly admitted that the decision to begin the 2019-20 basketball season with conference matchups was made specifically to help boost ratings for the new ACC Network.

It was a scheduling philosophy that may have been popular with those watching at home on television, but was never fully embraced by a majority of the league's coaches.

"It’s just a money grab,” Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, never one to hold back his opinion, said after his team's opening night loss to Virginia.

NC State's Kevin Keatts was a little more diplomatic, though equally as unhappy, in part because two of his best players were unavailable for the Wolfpack's opener against Georgia Tech -- a game it lost in overtime.

Apparently, Keatts, Boeheim and the rest of their fellow ACC coaches won't have to worry about the early conference matchups this season.

According to a report by CBS Sports college basketball writer Jon Rothstein, the conference is scrapping the idea for the 2020-21 season.

Sources: The ACC will not begin next season with conference games like it did last season. League does plan though, to play conference games in December.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) May 12, 2020

Rothstein did indicate, however, indicate that the ACC still plans to play conference games in December -- a virtual necessity now that it has gone to a 20-game league schedule.

Swofford, speaking at the ACC's Operation Basketball event in Charlotte last fall, said that he favors a season opening event "to start the basketball season in a way that it deserves and that really grabs fans' attention ... right out of the chute."

But he added that at least for now, the idea of opening night conference matchups was only a one-year experiment.

"We'll experience it and then talk about it," he said, "and then move forward from there."

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