According to sources in the Big East and ACC, the idea is to reestablish the ACC as the preeminent conference in college basketball and was a predatory strike at the Big East, which, while struggling to improve its BCS rankings in football, had established itself as the runaway leader in basketball.
The ACC’s action reestablished the conference’s power base in the Tobacco Road area of North Carolina, where Duke and North Carolina have reigned for years as its most influential forces. In this instance, it was the voices of Duke Hall of Fame basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski and athletic director Kevin White that rang the loudest.
It also demonstrated the growing influence of Boston College, if not as an athletic power, then as a strong character in a passion play of intrigue, negotiations, and power moves - one of which was to successfully block Connecticut’s potential membership in the ACC.
BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo, who was part of the 12-member ACC expansion committee, adamantly denied that the move was dictated by basketball interests, but he did concede that the effects of it may boost that sport more than football.
“It had nothing to do with basketball,’’ said DeFilippo. “It was football money which drove expansion. It was football money and securing our future.’’
DeFilippo said the move was dictated in part by the expansion of the Southeastern Conference to include Texas A&M, which prompted the Big 12 to inquire about Pittsburgh, which is in the Northeast, an area in which the ACC felt it necessary to expand.
“We wanted new playmates and we wanted Eastern playmates,’’ said DeFilippo. “When the Big 12 inquired about Pittsburgh, we asked, ‘Why let them come into our area?’ ’’
DeFilippo was also insistent that the Duke influence was minimal.
“Mike Krzyzewski didn’t stop expansion the last time and he was not going to start expansion this time,’’ said DeFilippo, who added that the mega-deals negotiated with the Big 12 and Pac-12 in recent months had caused an “unbelievable shift in the marketplace.’’
