The Atlantic Coast Conference will reduce its men's Basketball conference schedule from 20 to 18 games beginning with the 2025-26 season. The change follows a period of disappointing performance by the league in recent years regarding postseason access.
Conference athletic directors approved the change Wednesday. The ACC had played a 20-game schedule since the 2019-20 season, except for a shortened schedule in 2020-21. The decision to revert to 18 games comes after lobbying was made lobbying was made by some coaches and administrators in prior years.
The league's recent struggles in securing bids for the NCAA Tournament prompted the move. In 2025, the ACC sent four of its 18 teams to the tournament, representing the lowest percentage of ACC teams to make the Big Dance since the field expanded in 1985.
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips stated, “Moving to an 18-game conference schedule is a direct result of our ongoing strategic review and analysis and provides our schools a better balance of non-conference and conference games.” The conference office collaborated with athletics directors, coaches, consultants, and television partners in assessing the league's performance metrics. ACC announced the schedule will feature teams starting league play in late December and ending on the first Saturday of March.
The new format includes each team playing one primary partner home and away each season. A second home-and-home opponent, a variable partner, will be determined annually. Teams will play a single game, home or away, against 14 other conference opponents, resulting in one "zero-play" opponent each season.
The established primary partners include Boston College-Notre Dame, Clemson-Georgia Tech, California-Stanford, Duke-North Carolina, Florida State-Miami, Louisville-SMU, NC State-Wake Forest, Pitt-Syracuse, and Virginia Tech-Virginia.
The change means some traditional rivalries previously guaranteed two meetings per season may now only play once annually. For example, North Carolina and NC State are not guaranteed to play twice each season, as UNC's primary partner is Duke and NC State's is Wake Forest.
The decision aims to allow teams more flexibility in scheduling non-conference games with higher metric value. The ACC had the worst nonconference winning percentage among major leagues last season and has been sub-.500 against top-100 teams for four consecutive years. Nine of the league's 18 teams finished outside the top 100 in the NET rankings in 2025. ACC reducing games seeks to improve team résumés.
Despite recent regular season struggles, the ACC has had teams make deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. Five ACC teams have reached the Final Four in the last four seasons, leading all conferences. The league has won three of the last 10 national championships.
The ACC joins the SEC and Big 12 in adopting an 18-game league schedule. The Big East and Big Ten conferences continue with 20-game schedules.
