The ACC will include California, Stanford and SMU beginning with the 2024-25 season. That will bring the total number of conference members to 18. With that clearly being too high of a number for its conference basketball tournaments, the conference decided a change was needed.
Starting in 2025, only the teams that finish in the top 15 in the conference standings will be invited to the ACC Tournament. This follows a cue from a recent decision by the Big Ten, which also will be expanding next season to the point where it also only will invite the top 15 teams in the conference standings to its tournament.
While Notre Dame’s 16th-ranked women’s team is not expected to slide to the bottom of the ACC anytime soon, the men already are there in a rebuilding season. If the new rules went into effect for this season, the Irish wouldn’t be invited to the tournament.
Hopefully, with a year of experience under their belt, the young men’s Irish team will improve enough that they still will play in the 2025 ACC Tournament. There’s a long road ahead though, and there’s no guarantee of things being any better next year. Best of luck to [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] and his team in reaching this new goal.
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