Possible Merger with the ACC and Big East Conference?

With the everchanging landscape of college athletics, one thing that we’ve learned is that anything is possible.

10 years ago, who would’ve thought that the Pac-10 Conference would no longer exist? Did you think that USC, UCLA and Washington would become members of the Big 10? Or that Stanford and California would join the ACC?

The bottom line is that never say never and that almost anything is possible.

I use that as a leadup to a story that seems farfetched but, who knows.

Using his radio show as a platform, former Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski made the suggestion that the ACC and Big East should merge into one basketball super conference. Now recently, St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino said the same thing citing the need for the Big East “needing to do something to compete with the power conferences.”

Well, it appears as though Big East commissioner Val Ackerman doesn’t think it’s a crazy idea.

Ackerman appeared on John Ourand’s The Varsity podcast and was asked about this topic.

“When you’ve got two Hall of Famers opining about, not only the history of college basketball but the future of college basketball, you have to listen,” said Ackerman. “I take very seriously any idea around the future of college basketball, what it means for the Big East, what the Big East should be doing. I’m not sure I can opine right now what that sort of combination would look like. But we’ve got some related ideas that we’re hatching here around alliances, about who we should be working with as we look to secure, not only the future of the Big East, but the future of college basketball.”

“I have great relationships with other commissioners, great respect for (ACC commissioner) Jim Phillips in particular,” Ackerman said. “I would say, I can’t really comment on it, but there’s been some conversations about what we could all be doing together, again, not only to secure our own futures, but to make sure that college basketball stays strong and relevant as football interests continue to dominate much of the headlines and much of the bandwidth of the leagues that we consider peer conferences.”

In terms of brands and strength of programs, adding teams like UConn, St. John’s, Villanova, Marquette, Xavier, etc. would sure make the ACC as strong as any conference in the country.

The question now is whether this is just a neat idea by two Hall of Fame coaches or something that could become reality.

Stay tuned.