Assuming that no other schools plan to leave or join the Atlantic Coast Conference in the next few months, the question remains: given the expansion that the conference has gone through recently -- adding Syracuse and Pittsburgh from the Big East, will there be any realignment of the Atlantic and Coastal divisions?
Florida State president Eric Barron has suggested a more natural geographical alignment plan, with Georgia Tech moving into the Atlantic division, where FSU already sits. His suggestion is, of course, mostly for the gain of his own program. At present, Seminoles fans have no divisional rivals in driving distance. Clemson is the nearest, and it’s 125 miles away from Tallahassee. Seems he’d rather fancy a regular visit to the bright lights of Atlanta instead.
David Teel of the Hampton Roads Daily Press doesn’t think it’s likely to happen, but he went ahead and took up the argument for argument’s sake, realigning the divisions in a way that could make more logical sense for the travel scheme:But who would move from the Atlantic to Coastal, and how would the switches affect permanent crossover partners as Syracuse and Pittsburgh prepare to join the league?
The most logical choice would be Maryland, which would create a Coastal Division in which all schools exceptMiami were within reasonable drives. That would change the alignments to:
ATLANTIC: Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Wake Forest, North Carolina State and Boston College.
COASTAL: Miami, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Duke and North Carolina.
It’s certainly not perfect -- FSU to Syracuse and BC is still quite a haul -- but it’s a good take on an issue that’s sure to come up again and again.
Food for thought, as the breakers continue to roll in from the realignment tsunami.
Eric Angevine is the editor of Storming the Floor. He tweets @stfhoops.