Since his retirement from Duke, legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski has stayed very much involved in basketball.
Coach K serves as a special adviser to the NBA, he’s still involved as an ambassador at Duke and he hosts a radio show on Sirius XM.
Krzyzewski knows better than anyone about the changes college sports have seen in recent years, and he has a few ideas for how his former conference, the ACC, can stay competitive.
“I’d like to see something innovative, like, I’d like to see the ACC and the Big East talk and form a mega basketball conference,” Krzyzewski said on his radio show last week. “People are talking about a mega football conference eventually. Imagine if we had the Big East.
“And you know what? Connecticut would have the opportunity to play football in our league. We need to at least talk about stuff like that. Imagine our footprint. Come on. And the quality of basketball to go along with the tradition of basketball in our conference.”
The ACC currently has 18 member schools in basketball, with all but Notre Dame also playing football in the conference. The Irish are independent in football but have a scheduling agreement with the ACC in which they play five games against conference opponents each season.
The Big East has 11 basketball-playing members, with UConn the only one that plays FBS football. A merger theoretically would create a 29-team basketball conference and add UConn to an 18-team football conference.
Krzyzewski didn’t go into detail about how scheduling would work in a megaconference, but regardless, the idea is sure to make headlines.
