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Monday, May 5
Updated: May 14, 1:59 PM ET
 
Krzyzewski, Williams against ACC expanding

By Andy Katz
ESPN.com

Mike Krzyzewski knows creating a 12-team league for the love of football overrides anything he or other coaches have to say.

But if it were up to Coach K and some other ACC basketball coaches, the conference wouldn't have to extend an invitation to other schools to join the ACC.

"The thing that made our league is basketball," Krzyzewski said. "Football is great, too. But the two-division concept in basketball for our league would be really bad."

The ACC holds its annual spring meetings this weekend. The Big East will hold its meetings the following weekend, when the topics of discussion will be the University of Miami's possible departure for the ACC and the potential fallout.

The ACC needs seven of nine votes to add the Hurricanes, and officials for both Boston College and Syracuse have publicly said they would want to follow Miami to the conference. The additions would ultimately create a ACC championship game in football.

Sources within the Big East are extremely worried over the potential departure of the three schools. And if the Big East is down to five in football, then a number of dominoes could follow. The Big East could look to football-laden Conference USA schools like Louisville and Cincinnati.

If the remaining football teams in the Big East were ever to break away -- Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Connecticut and West Virginia -- then the other basketball-only Catholic schools could pursue their own league.

An extreme example being tossed around is a Catholic league of Villanova, Georgetown, St. John's, Seton Hall, Providence, Marquette, Dayton, Xavier, DePaul, Saint Louis, and maybe Notre Dame, if it were to remain an independent in football.

"Miami is the domino to everything,'' Krzyzewski said. "When you're in a league and you make a huge decision like that, then you have to be cognizant of the impact of the other aspects. This isn't a single decision, that this will just help football. Does it help football? Is the football championship (with 12 teams) that important that it dilutes something else that you have?"

That something is basketball, and Krzyzewski is concerned about how the league would be divided. Would the four teams in the state of North Carolina -- Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State and Wake Forest -- be kept together? What about Maryland and Virginia?

"All of a sudden, you wouldn't be playing these teams twice," Krzyzewski said. "You start diluting your product at a time when we should be keeping it up. The primary issue was that we did things a certain way with a true round-robin schedule.

"We know in our season-ticket package that we get Maryland and North Carolina every season. What happens if Clemson didn't get Maryland and Carolina? That's not good for the fans."

Krzyzewski said he wouldn't be opposed to adding just a 10th team and playing 18 conference games, but "that doesn't do anything for football. You need 12 to have the two divisions for that championship game. It will hurt basketball, I just don't know how much."

Maryland coach Gary Williams said he wouldn't want to lose the home-and-home rivalries with Duke or North Carolina.

"I would think they would have to stay," Williams said. "It would be weird if we played Carolina only once."

Both Williams and Krzyzewski said they're not fans of the Big 12 scheduling format. For example, Kansas each played Nebraska, Iowa State and Kansas State twice, but only Oklahoma and Texas once. That kind of scheduling imbalance means there isn't a true champion.

"Then it becomes who you don't play like the Big East, or in the Big 12, where you might play a team home or road," Williams said. "They're going to take a vote of who is in favor of expansion but it doesn't matter. It's a president's level division."

Krzyzewski added: "I don't think we have any say at all. We'll try to make it work. We've never asked to make a presentation to presidents. There are a number of athletic directors who want this. They want it to make more money. They don't want anybody who will take a different view to those who will make a decision. If it's going to be done then the coaches won't have a say."

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.





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