The ACC expanded to 15 members yesterday, adding Syracuse and Pittsburgh as full-time members and Notre Dame in all sports except football.
The addition of three new member institutions will bring a number of changes to the conference next season. Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski believes next year's ACC could be the greatest college basketball conference ever. The alignment of six of the nation's superpowers could do the same in men's lacrosse, and a conference slate featuring Notre Dame and Syracuse will give the Blue Devils another taste of their 2013 national championship run. And beneath the conference's new exterior, issues of travel budgets have some programs asking what scheduling adjustments they may need to make in the future.
So how is ACC expansion going to affect Duke next year? We took to Twitter to answer your questions to our handles, @dukebasketball and @chroniclesports.
https://twitter.com/_mhammy16/status/351749092596129795
Basketball schedules have not yet been released for the 2013-14 season, so from that end, it's all speculation. It is imagined that Duke and North Carolina will still square off on the first Saturday in March, as is tradition. The conference's television partner, ESPN, will likely want to match Syracuse up with either Pittsburgh or Notre Dame to rekindle an old Big East rivalry during that week as well. But at this point, not much is known on that front.
What we do know, however, is the rivalry week schedule for the 2013 football season. The Blue Devils will travel to face the Tar Heels on the road. Pittsburgh will host Miami in a Friday night tilt, a rematch of two memorable matchups in 2002-03, when a Larry Fitzgerald-led Panthers squad nearly upended the top-ranked Hurricanes. Syracuse will host Boston College at the Carrier Dome, N.C. State will host Maryland in the Terrapins' final ACC football game and Virginia Tech will travel to Charlottesville to take on Virginia. A few other teams will play traditional non-conference rivalry games. Clemson will be on the road at South Carolina and Florida State will hit the swamp to play Florida. Georgia Tech will host Georgia in Atlanta and Wake Forest will take on Vanderbilt.
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Every program in the 15-team ACC will be assigned two permanent travel partners. In addition to facing North Carolina twice every season, Duke's second permanent partner will be Wake Forest. The Blue Devils' schedule will also feature two rotating home-and-home series per year. Next year for Duke that will be Georgia Tech and Syracuse.
https://twitter.com/JakeWalker22/status/351848612675850242
Great question. NCAA rules dictate that teams are only allowed to play 31 regular season games, and if they participate in some sort of preseason tournament, that means they can only schedule 27 of them in addition to the tournament. The Blue Devils almost always play in some sort of preseason tournament. Last year it was the Battle 4 Atlantis. In 2011-12 it was the Maui Invitational. This season will be the NIT Season Tip-Off at Madison Square Garden. Duke will play host to its first-round game against Norfolk State before heading to New York for the semifinals and finals.
Last year the ACC played 16 conference games during the regular season. This year the conference schedule will expand to 18 games. Syracuse played 18 conference games last year in the Big East, but did not play in a preseason tournament, which allowed the Orange to schedule a full 31 games. Since Duke will still play a tournament next year, it will likely have to drop two games from its nonconference slate, reducing it from 13 games to 11.
https://twitter.com/Dhitch5/status/351757704307552256
Assuming Duke is able to take the ACC regular season crown next year (which is a big if in a conference this talented), the other teams in contention will likely be North Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia and Pittsburgh. Although the playing status of P.J. Hairston could be up in the air depending on his legal situation, the Tar Heels return enough talent to be a much-improved team from last year. The Orange might not be a national championship contender like they were last year, but they shouldn't have much of a problem replacing the talented Michael Carter-Williams and James Southerland. Tony Bennett's Virginia squad has the pieces to be a surprise team in the powerhouse conference this season, much like Miami was last year. And a well-coached Pittsburgh squad under the direction of Jamie Dixon plays good enough defense to always be in the hunt.
And as always, we have a couple of Duke basketball odds and ends to take care of:
https://twitter.com/Always_Classy96/status/351751321277304832
Seth Curry drew the short end of the stick this NBA draft season. He played his entire senior year on a badly injured ankle, still found a way to average 17.5 points per game, but offseason surgery kept him from working out for NBA teams and overcoming some of the doubts they had about him. Nobody questioned Curry's shooting stroke, but working out for teams could have let them see whether or not his size and agility would work against him at the next level. That's inevitably what kept him from having much of a chance at being drafted last week. Curry was offered a spot on the Charlotte Bobcats' team in the Las Vegas Summer League last week, but will not be healthy enough to suit up by mid-July. It appears Curry's road to the NBA will be a long one.
https://twitter.com/b3n_mann/status/351840067108610049
As we reported last week, Rodney Hood sustained an injury to his right achilles tendon when competing in training camp for the United States World University Games squad, for which he was a finalist. Hood's achilles is not torn and the injury should keep him sidelined for 4-6 weeks. But after battling serious injuries last season, it's likely that Duke will take its time when getting him back out on the court.
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