CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Win and you’re in.
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, a fan of rewarding success, is unsure everyone in his super-sized league next season should make the cut for the 2024-2025 conference tournament.
“I don’t know that we would invite 18 teams to an ACC men’s or women’s basketball championship,” Phillips said Wednesday at the league’s annual tip-off gathering.
The league adds Cal, SMU and Stanford next season.
There is a postseason flow that currently works for teams, fans and venues as the tournament runs from Tuesday through Saturday or perhaps Wednesday through Sunday, Phillips explained. He didn’t want to disrupt that with an additional day to accommodate all teams.
“I don’t feel like that’s something that we should do,” Phillips continued. “I’ve told them that. I’m not speaking out of turn.
“I think you’ve got to earn your way to play in, I think, the most prestigious basketball tournaments in the country, and if you don’t get to a certain threshold, then you just don’t make it that year.”
Phillips took Virginia Tech coach Mike Young by surprise. “The thought of all teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference not being in the ACC tournament is troubling,” he said.
His Hokies were a seventh seed for the 2022 ACC Tournament and won four games in four days, including an 82-67 win over top-seeded Duke, to clinch an unexpected automatic bid to the NCAAs.
“Now, our league’s going to get it right,” Young said. “But I didn’t like that thought from the commissioner this morning.”
