On Wednesday, the Atlantic Coast Conference revealed the matchups for each program for the 2025-2026 college basketball season.
It's important that the league is shifting to a shorter conference slate for the 2025-2026 season, allowing teams to play more non-conference games to help bolster their NCAA Tournament resumes.
With the changes, it limits the amount of conference home-and-home series schools have on their schedule and also results in each program not playing one other conference squad on a rotating type of basis.
When the changes to the scheduling were originally revealed, it was a guarantee that Duke and North Carolina would be matched up to play annually twice a year. I mean, that's simply a no-brainer.
It was also expected that NC State would be the other team that the UNC basketball program would play twice, but... that's not the case.
In fact, the Tar Heels take on the Wolfpack once, having to make the short trip to Raleigh. This season will end a stretch in which the two in-state foes have squared off in a game in Chapel Hill, dating back over 100 years.
For the first time since 1919, NC State won't be making a trip to Chapel Hill. Given the attention and hype around every matchup between these two teams, it feels like a major miss to not have them playing twice during regular season action.
If you want to take it a step further, how is Duke not playing Miami this season?!
Jai Lucas left Duke to become the head coach of the Hurricanes, and in his first season at the helm doesn't even get a crack at his former team?!
The math simply isn't mathing.
While the format of the schedule makes sense in terms of allowing more non-conference games to be played, it also takes away from some of the great competition that we've watched between teams who have built rivalries through their battles on the hardwood. Of course, the addition of three west coast teams to the Atlantic Coast Conference still doesn't make sense, as the additions have hampered the basketball that we all anxiously await for during the winter months.
Just wait until the schedule rotates to the point where the UNC basketball program doesn't play NC State at all during regular season action. You know that's destined to happen...