The premiere conference in the country for Men’s and Women’s basketball returns in less than a month, looking to create another Cinderella story in the 2024-25 season.
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, addressed the media at 12:30pm to discuss new revenue success initiatives, the state of the conference, and being undervalued in terms of selection priorities in the NCAA tournament.
Jim Phillips highlighted his feelings towards the Atlantic Coast Conference, calling it “undervalued from top to bottom”. When asked to expound on the statement, Phillips responded “I stated the statistics. This is a premiere basketball conference. I know you don’t get credit for past successes. I get it. But we just feel like the last three years with five invitations, each of those five years, is not reflective of the basketball that’s being played in this league…I think we have the structure in place, now we have to go play. We have to win.”
ACC Men’s Basketball will welcome back its ACC Player of the Year, Rookie, Sixth Man, and Most Improved Players of the Year. Last season, four teams advanced to the Sweet 16, three to the Elite 8, with NC State moving onto the Final Four in a Cinderella run that few expected.
The ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament will return to Charlotte for the first time since 2019, allowing fans of the game to enjoy their favorite teams play in the Spectrum Center.
ACC Women’s Basketball also remains the national standard, entering the 2024-25 season with six ranked teams in ESPN’s way-too-early women’s basketball top 25. As the women’s game continues to grow on a collegiate and professional level, the ACC has put in initiatives to grant women’s programs the same monetary rewards for success as the men’s programs. In August, the NCAA Division 1 Board of Directors voted unanimously to introduce a proposal that would financially reward participating women’s basketball programs beginning with the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
The landscape of college athletics is in a perpetual state of change, but Jim Phillips and the ACC committee remain invested in maximizing the academic and off the court experience for its student-athletes.
