ACC moving to 20-game conference basketball schedule in 2019

The first major change brought by the freshly-announced ACC Network isn't one that a lot of people saw coming. At least not on this day.

In the middle of his official announcement of the ACC Network, ACC commissioner John Swofford tossed in the news that the conference will be moving to a 20-game league schedule in basketball beginning in 2019.

Several of the league's coaches have complained in recent years about the inequity of the conference schedule, where everyone plays 10 teams once and four teams twice. The move to the 20-game schedule should help alleviate those concerns, at least somewhat. With the new schedule, each team will play one game against eight conference foes, and get home-and-homes with the six others.

The other major effect the news figures to have is slightly diminishing the number of "buy games" that ACC powers will host against smaller programs early in the season. Of course ACC programs could also choose to go the other way and cut one or two games against major non-conference opponents out of their schedule instead.

The ACC last expanded its conference schedule from 16 to 18 games before the start of the 2012-13 season, when the league moved to 15 teams.