Pitt will join Coastal Division in new ACC alignment

By: Nathan Warters | The News & Advance
Published: February 03, 2012

Pittsburgh will be in the Coastal Division when it joins the Atlantic Coast Conference, and Syracuse will be in the Atlantic.

There will be no other changes to the divisions, the ACC announced Friday. The ACC also announced that its conference schedules will consist of nine games for football (up from eight) and 18 games for basketball (up from 16) when Pitt and Syracuse officially become members.

Pitt and Syracuse accepted formal invitations to join the ACC in September. It is still unclear, however, when they will officially join the conference.

Pittsburgh will play in the same division as Virginia Tech and Virginia. The Hokies and Cavaliers will play the Panthers every year.

In the expanded football divisions, an ACC team will play the other six teams in its division, its primary crossover opponent from the other division and two rotating opponents from the other division.

In Virginia Tech’s case, its crossover opponent will still be Boston College. It will play N.C. State, Maryland, Florida State, Clemson, Wake Forest and Syracuse each twice, home and away, in a six-year cycle.

The ACC will go to an 18-game men’s and women’s basketball schedule starting in 2012-13. All 14 teams will compete in the postseason ACC Tournament. The new format for the expanded tournament will be announced at a later time.

When Pitt and Syracuse join, each basketball team will have one primary partner (Virginia Tech and Virginia, Boston College and Syracuse, Clemson and Georgia Tech, Duke and North Carolina, Florida State and Miami, Maryland and Pitt, N.C. State and Wake Forest).

Each ACC school plays its primary partner home and away every season. It will rotate playing the other 12 teams over a three-year cycle. Each year it will play one four-team group both home and away, one four-team group only at home and one four-team group only away.

“We have been engaged in discussions on the various options for integrating Pitt and Syracuse since early fall,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a written statement. “It’s a tremendous tribute to the leadership at our schools that we will be able to seamlessly add Pitt and Syracuse at the appropriate time when they become full playing members.”