What could Coach K’s proposed ACC-Big East merger look like?

Image Courtesy: The Courier-Journal

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) has clearly fallen behind the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference (SEC), particularly in the lifeblood of its league—college basketball. This decline has been especially evident with only a few teams making the NCAA Tournament: Duke, Clemson, Louisville, and North Carolina.

Back in January, former Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski addressed the issue on his weekly radio show. “Our conference has been a great one—I think it needs to get better,” Coach K said.

“I’d like to see the ACC and the Big East talk and form a mega basketball conference,” he continued. “Imagine if we had the Big East.” St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino agreed with his longtime friend’s sentiments.

After the Huskies won their opening game of the 2025 NCAA Tournament in ACC territory—Raleigh—UConn head coach Dan Hurley, who led his team to back-to-back national championships in 2023 and 2024, revealed that he had spoken with Coach K about making such a move happen. Hurley also expressed interest in renewing matchups with the Huskies’ former conference rivals—Boston College, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse—in any capacity possible.

The legitimacy of this potential move is real. Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman told Ourland: “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. I take very seriously any idea around the future of college basketball—what it means for the Big East and what the Big East should be doing.”

However, such a move may not happen anytime soon. The Big East is under contract with its media rights deal through 2031, while the ACC is locked in through 2036. For any merger or realignment to take place, those contracts would need to be renegotiated—a process that could take years. Even if revised deals were agreed upon, the issue of media rights revenue distribution would remain a significant hurdle.

So, what could a future league look like with the 18 current ACC schools (outside of California, SMU, and Stanford) and the 11 current Big East schools? Don’t take this too seriously—this is purely speculative and may never actually happen.

Potential division alignment:

Central
Butler
Creighton
DePaul
Louisville
Marquette
Notre Dame
Pittsburgh
Xavier

East
Boston College
Connecticut
Georgetown
Providence
Seton Hall
St. John’s
Syracuse
Villanova

South
Clemson
Duke
Florida State
Georgia Tech
Miami
North Carolina
NC State
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest