AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — After experiencing historically low representation in the 2025 NCAA Tournament, the ACC is changing its approach this basketball season.
The ACC announced May 7 it will transition from a 20-game conference schedule to an 18-game one in 2025-26. The 20-game slate ran from 2019-20 to this past season. The 18-game slate is a return to form last used in the ACC from 2012-13 to 2018-19.
Louisville basketball coach Pat Kelsey, who led the Cards to a second-place finish in the league last season and an 8-seed in March Madness, is all for it.
“I think it allows more freedom for nonconference scheduling,” Kelsey told The Courier Journal at ACC spring meetings. “You’re not as boxed in from a 20-game conference (slate), so schools will utilize that to put the ACC’s best foot forward when it comes to postseason and bids and things like that.”
Commissioner Jim Phillips said the change is “a direct result of our ongoing strategic review and analysis and provides our schools a better balance of nonconference and conference games, while also allowing them more autonomy in the scheduling process.”
Under this new format, ACC teams have been assigned a primary partner. Louisville’s is SMU, meaning the Cardinals and the Mustangs will play a home-and-home series in 2025-26.
Here’s a look at all of the primary partnerships:
Boston College-Notre DameClemson-Georgia TechCalifornia-StanfordDuke-North CarolinaFlorida State-MiamiLouisville-SMUN.C. State-Wake ForestPitt-SyracuseVirginia Tech-Virginia
The conference will also assign each member home-and-home series with a variable partner. Those assignments have not yet been revealed. Teams will then have one game, either home or away, against 14 of the 15 remaining league members.
Louisville’s 2025-26 nonconference slate includes games against Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Cincinnati and Memphis. The Cards will also face a third SEC team as part of its annual showdown with the ACC, though that opponent has not yet been announced.
As far as topics outside the league’s scheduling model that could help its standings with the NCAA selection committee, Kelsey said coaches talked about media initiatives and officiating Monday evening. Over the next few days, there will be “many more things discussed,” he added, including bicoastal travel, which the Cards did not have to deal with last season — California and Stanford both came to the KFC Yum! Center.
Kelsey returned to Amelia Island as the league’s reigning Coach of the Year. He’s no longer a new face in the conference but finds himself in rooms with a lot of first-time ACC head coaches. Miami hired Jai Lucas; N.C. State hired Will Wade; Virginia hired Ryan Odom; and Florida State hired Luke Loucks. Under these circumstances, and having been one of just four teams in the league to make the 2025 NCAA Tournament, does Kelsey view himself as a potential lead voice for ACC basketball?
“I still kind of mind my own business a little bit, realizing I’m still sort of the new guy,” Kelsey said. “But, I mean, when I have an opinion, I give it to those meetings. It’s not like from last year to this year I feel like I have a different standing or like I’ve got to say more, or whatever. If I have input to give, I’ll give it.”
Kelsey instead pointed toward Clemson’s Brad Brownell, who is the league’s longest tenured coach, or “elder statesman,” as Kelsey referred to him. Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes agrees but also acknowledged the importance of younger coaches like Kelsey speaking up.
“I think we’ve got some really good young voices in there,” Forbes told The Courier Journal. “Pat did an unbelievable job this year at Louisville. Hubert (Davis at UNC) has been to the national championship. Jon (Scheyer)’s been to the Final Four, Elite Eight (with Duke). We’ve got a lot of guys in there that are young and have had success, so you’ve just got to give ’em a chance to grow.
“… I do think guys like Jon Scheyer and Pat and Hubert, they’ve got to find their voice. Maybe I need to shut up so they can. Because they’re the future of the ACC. And Ryan Odom, Will Wade. There’s a lot of good people in that room.”
Reach college sports enterprise reporter Payton Titus at pt****@*****tt.com, and follow her on X @petitus25.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bh*****@*****tt.com, and follow him on X @brooksHolton.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: ACC spring meetings: Here’s what Pat Kelsey thinks about new schedule