David Teel, ACC, reports back some findings from ACC media days.

Joining us now from the pages of the Richmond Times, Dispatch, the guru of ACC reporting, my friend David Teal.

ACC basketball tip-off. If they had, if you ever, I don't know, have you ever been to a Taco Bell drive-through or Taco Bell? No. Okay, you and I are the same. Apparently somebody on TV, a Fox Business reporter, was lamenting the fact that he spent $28 on lunch for him at a Taco Bell.

So it's hard, like it's been proven that you can get to 28, but you really have to screw it up to get to 28. I think, I think the most I could probably do is like 18 at Taco Bell, but I gotta be really, really hungry, so. Did Taco Bell start selling tequila or something? Well, you know, it depends, like I know you can get a beer like at a McDonald's in Europe, so why not?

Depending on where the jurisdiction is, maybe you go across the border into Canada, maybe you can get a Taco Bell with, with a, a Molson or something. All right, David Teal, did I hear this correctly, that they are legitimately discussing and in fact encouraging the expansion of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at the ACC Media Day? It depends on who you talk to. Now, we're a long ways from any potential expansion. Let's put any notion that this is imminent to rest. The Transformation Committee has been kicking around an idea that 25, up to 25% of a sports participation could qualify for NCAA tournament access. Right.

So you're talking about for Division 1 men's basketball and women's basketball, you're talking about, about 90 teams. Right. Which is another complete, basically another round. Yes. I mean, not, not everybody playing another round, but like, uh, other than the top, oh, 4 teams, 5, maybe 6 teams, everybody else playing an additional round. Yeah, it's a, it's a bad idea.

The only reason to do that would be, of course, money. Did people legitimately try to give the excuse, or the, not excuse, reason, that there are a lot of good teams left out of the tournament? Some did. Yeah.

Gosh, that's embarrassing. Leonard Hamilton framed it as just access for more athletes, and wouldn't that be a great thing to bring that joy into those young people's lives? Okay. I've never been, Coach Hamilton, he's the greatest. Yes. When I asked him the question yesterday, he looked at me and goes, well, what do you think?

I said, I think it's a bad idea. And then he proceeded to, with a smile on his face, essentially take me down and scold me. And I've never felt so good being scolded because it was Leonard Hamilton. He was smiling the whole time. Leonard, Leonard is the great, I do.

I love Leonard Hamilton. So framed that way, I get it. Framed that way, I don't disagree with it, right? Like for the, for, and for that same reason, and I would be in favor of this, for that same reason, I would say, why don't we have 80 college football bowl games? Because even if you're on a three and nine team, why shouldn't you also have the thrill of going to the Charmin bowl and, and, you know, and being able to have a rib eating contest in Frisco, Texas?

Why shouldn't you also be able to do that? And I can get with that. If that was really, if I believe that were really the issue, but I don't believe that's, that's the issue, but I appreciate him framing it that way. Do you think we'll at least start, because I've always thought this, that we'll ultimately, because we have four play-in games, the first four, I believe we're just going to double that field and have the same, two 16-seeds playing for a right to get whacked by a one and two 11 or two 12-seeds playing for the right to get in and bother somebody's bracket. What Jim Boeheim suggested yesterday is that you essentially have a first four for every region. Yeah.

Which would, which would, which would add 12 teams to the bracket. It would take you from 68 to 82. I have no problem with that. I mean, I really don't, I don't think that would be terrible. Yeah.

68 to 80. But you, you, I don't know if you still do it, but there was a time where you tried to project the NCAA tournament bracket, right? Yes. Right. Right.

And we know a lot of people that do it and I used to do it. And then when you do it, you realize that once you get to like the last five or six teams, nobody's good. So we, we, we would now be adding 12 teams beyond the teams that we already knew really weren't good that my argument is that we don't have too many deserving teams is that, you know, nobody's really good. We're, we should probably reduce the size of the tournament rather than expand it, but we're never going to reduce the size of the tournament. It's like shortening the professional, uh, you know, shortening a baseball season to 120 games, uh, or a basketball season to 70 games, as opposed to 82, they were never taking regular season games. Uh, they, well, here's their money.

Here's the, here's the counter to that, Adam. And I don't disagree with you, but look at last season's NCAA baseball tournament. Who was the last team in? Uh, the T the team that got to the college world series, right?

No, Ole miss the team that won the college. Right. Okay. Yeah. Right. Ole miss. State last week won the national championship. So that's the new argument. That's, that's something Jim Phillips raised yesterday. See, look at this.

It could have, Ole miss could have easily missed the terms out to NC state for that last bid and would have been denied the chance that ultimately won them the national championship. So then the argument is anybody can win. So why not let everybody in if that's the argument. And my counter to that has always been everybody is in.

Right. What would the damage you're right. Because all of the conference basketball tournaments are your pathway in. Um, but what would, what would if we let everybody into the NCAA tournament, like 363 teams, by the way, I want to see the bracket on that. If we let everybody in, what damage would that really do to all of the conference tournaments? Would the big south tournament matter at all at that point? I'm not sure any conference tournament would matter at that point, Adam. And it would become, if everybody's in, it would become so unwieldy.

CBS doesn't want this thing going past the masters. Right. We have to start it much earlier.

Yes. So, or you started much later. I was talking to somebody yesterday said, you know, college basketball really wanted to reinvent itself.

It would start in January, go till May. And it's not, it's not a ridiculous idea simply because it might brain mentioned this yesterday. He's a smart guy.

Yeah. He's, he's worried that college football playoff expansion is going to further suck the oxygen up and damage college basketball's regular season that no one's going to pay attention to essentially the first, almost two thirds of the season. Well, I, here's the thing I would say to Mike Bray. I think that's already happened. I think that, I think college, and I joke about this, but it's not really a joke. I think the college basketball season starts with the first Duke Carolina game. That's when we really start paying attention. And right to just basically it's after the Superbowl. And I don't believe the college football playoff expansion is going to lengthen the season beyond where it already is maybe by one week, but everything that they're expanding, they're expanding, like back, not, I mean, in terms of earlier, not later. So all, most of these games will be played in December, not, not January into February. So I understand Mike Bray's fear, but I think we're already there. I think whether it's college football or pro football, we can't take our eyes off the, off football until that's over. And then we start paying attention. I would argue that the, the real move would be to not start the college basketball season in early November anymore. We used to start around Thanksgiving weekend. That makes a lot more sense to me. Yes.

I don't, I just don't know why. I mean, I know why, because ESPN wants like early November programming and all of those tournaments are, I mean, ESPN obviously tell televises most of them and those are all, those are all big deals. But yeah, I, I remember Maryland and Georgetown played their first game of the season one year. The, I think it was the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend, the, the Joe Smith game against Georgetown. I think the last time, other than an NCAA tournament matchup when Maryland and Georgetown actually played a basketball game against each other, in spite of being separated by like 10 miles. So that, that's, that's the way it used to be. But I think a one semester sport would be better for basketball than what we have now.

What was the, what was the feeling like down there? By the way, did Jim Phillips do a long dissertation about a bunch of other sports before basketball, like he does before football? He was, he was, there was a little more brevity. He was like nine, 10 minutes opening statement. Right. Oh, wow. Why, why, why did we get 25 for, for football?

It's all right. It's the summer. We need, we need things to talk about. But what, what was the general feeling about the league as we go into this season? Jim Boeheim still here is like the furniture. So what, just the general feeling about basketball going in, we got new coach, new coach at Duke. So everybody's still optimistic about the, what the ACC is going to be like this year on the, on the hardwood?

Yeah, I think everyone is optimistic. There was a little bit of, I told you so, and chest pounding about, Hey, we told you we weren't down. Look at how well we did in the NCAA tournament. And there is a, there is a kernel of truth to that. Sure.

Let's also remember that last season was the first time since the early sixties that the ACC regular season did not include a matchup of ranked teams. That's bad. Yeah. And it was bad.

Yeah. Well, we could always figure out a way to make, make everything look, uh, look better than it was. And I would argue that NCAA tournament success can be lucky as much as anything else. And I would argue that last year, I obviously Carolina became great and maybe they are, I don't know.

Uh, and Duke was really good all year long and just kind of, I think, kind of wore down from all of the attention that they were getting on a day in, day out basis before we let David Teal, the Richmond times dispatch go, uh, how is the mood for football in the state of Virginia in the ACC? Everybody's still on board with Brent, Brian, Tony, Tony Elliott, and how things are going. Everybody's on board with my alma mater, James. That's right. That is right.

Running the sunbelt. I think, I think the fan bases at Virginia tech and Virginia respectively are, are, are still hopeful that their coaching hires will, will, will, will work out. I don't think we're at Brent Venable, Defcon, Oklahoma yet. Yeah. Right.

But they are undoubtedly discouraged. Yeah. It's from, you know, Tony Elliott's an offensive guy and all of a sudden Brent Armstrong is broken. Brent prize, a defensive guy, and all of a sudden Drake may Israel, a band of Canada, although Drake may has, has looked great against everyone, but is he a bad Canada? Who's very good.

Looks like Tony. Uh, like I want Virginia tech to be good. They're one of the football brands in the league. Uh, we're getting so far removed from Virginia tech being good. Even the last several years of Frank Beamer, they were just, they're just okay. We're so far removed from Virginia tech being a threat that I just wonder, I wonder, I mean, and it's very possible.

It was just all Frank Beamer. And we have to maybe kind of just guess that maybe that might be the case that it might just have been Frank Beamer and nobody else that has made Virginia tech very good. To your point about football brands, Saturday will be the 40th meeting between Virginia tech and Miami.

The first in which both teams have losing records. Wow. All right.

You've managed to depress me even more. Uh, David Teal, you're the best. I appreciate your time, man. Uh, add by David Teal on Twitter. Uh, talk to you very soon. You bet. Thanks.