Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - ACC SQUAD - Which ACC Teams are Winners and Losers in Spring Transfer Portal?

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

ACC basketball and football are in the spotlight as the transfer portal reshapes the landscape. How will the changes impact teams like the North Carolina Tar Heels and Syracuse Orange? The episode explores the transfer portal's influence on ACC teams, with insights into the challenges faced by the Louisville Cardinals and Miami Hurricanes. Key figures like Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson are discussed, alongside the proposed reduction of ACC basketball games. Hosts Alex Donno, Jackson Holzer, and Isaac Shade, joined by guests like Dalton Pence, dissect these developments, offering expert analysis on the evolving strategies and potential impacts on NCAA tournament chances.Tune in for a deep dive into the ACC's shifting dynamics and discover how these changes could redefine the season. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Now that the dust is just about settled on this crazy transfer portal, which team in the ACC got hit the hardest? Let's assemble the squad. You're talking ball with the ACC squad, sponsored by game time. From Florida State to North Carolina, from Syracuse to Miami, and from NC State to California, it's the local experts of the Locked-on podcast network, bringing you scoops, breakdowns, and the most comprehensive preview of the upcoming ACC weekend. Hang on, it could get loud, it could get heated, and it will definitely be fun. Squad up, you're part of the ACCC squad. Shout out to the everydayers and thank you so much for making the ACC squad,

your first listen and your first watch. We're available free wherever you get your podcast. We're free on YouTube. We're part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Today's episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code Locked-on College at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. We got a full house on this episode of the squad.

We're going to talk about proposed changes to the ACC basketball schedule. Is this a terrible idea or maybe a good idea? We're forgetting the terrible idea that may theoretically help more ACC teams get into the NCAA tournament. We will talk about the soap opera in Chapel Hill. TMZ has been all over the Bill Belichick Jordan Hudson relationship. Is this going to be Bill's downfall at North Carolina? But let's talk transfer portal. Football and basketball, you know, the dust is still settling when it comes to incoming transfers.

But in terms of outgoing, who got hit the hardest? I'm Alex Dono from Lockdown Keynes. We got a full house today. Jackson Holzer from Lockdown Syracuse. Isaac Shade from Locked on Tar Heels. J.J. Jackson locked on Blue Devils. We roll out the red carpet for AJ Black and Lockedon Lost in College. Big time. And we got Dalton Pence from Locked on Louisville. And you know what, Dalton, I'm going to let you buy the first round on transfer portal losses. And make it a mint julep, please.

Because you're in Kentucky. We got the Kentucky Derby coming up. Talk to me about Louisville's portal losses, football, basketball, all the above. Yeah. It's a it's a key week here in the day. Derby City, the name being that for a reason, Kentucky Derby here in about 48 hours. And I'm hoping Dono that because it's been a while since I've been on this show that my Wi-Fi doesn't go off like that bell and the horse that started running, unfortunately. But we can all raise our $22 mint juleps if you're into buying one of the most overrated drinks on the history of the planet. But I digress.

Key week here for Louisville, but Kelsey and Company, they've been big, chilling for a while now, man. I felt like Louisville once again has had a really good portal run on offense. They did just lose James Scott to the portal at the 11th hour. They haven't been one of those portal casualty teams that loses a guy unexpectedly, but James Scott. I don't know what took three minutes. It's close. Time stamp. Time stamp. The tradition is back. The The Dalton's Frozen tradition is back. We forgot to put the over under on Wi-Fi law. We totally should.

And the face that Dalton is making Frozen is just glorious. In my back? He's back. I'm back. What I tell you all, literally. James Scott. Greatest two minutes in sports, it only took two minutes for the Wi-Fi to go out. It's a lot of weird coincidental.

That was an announcer's jing. You said, announcers jinxed yourself there, dude. Listen, I won't say too much other than Pat Kelsey. has done the damn thing once again, three elite level guards, his top three targets out of the portal, got him to visit, got him committed within a week of the portal opening.

So business as usual, Jeff Brom, one of the best things that he's been able to do, not only is bringing in good portal additions, but retaining top talent. So they've had a couple of losses from guys to Notre Dame to Oregon and such. But hey, man, it's been definitely welcome. how, you know, there's not been much going on recently.

Impressive to see Pat Kelsey put together a roster once again. I mean, the turnaround that they had from just a couple of years ago when Louisville was the laughing stock of the ACC and basketball to bring together a great team in one season and then to do it once again this year. From the Duke side of things, fellas, there's only three teams in the entire country in basketball that did not have a single scholarship player enter the transfer portal. And once again, Duke is in that category.

Don't know how they've been able to miss it. Once again, with players leaving ship after a year ago losing seven players, although two seasons ago, John Shire didn't have anybody leave other than, or no players went into the transfer portal. I think he's having these honest conversations with this guys that has helped out a whole lot. Because 87 of them are off to the draft. Yeah. We do, you know, that is a nice luxury to have when you line yourself up

to have as many lottery picks as Duke does. So that has been really fun. to see when there has been so many other players entering the transfer portal across the sport. And then as you guys know, from the football side of things, we're just happy to be competitive for two or three years in a row, right? The Mike Elko experience was a whole lot of fun. Manny Diaz somehow, some way built off that, had an unbelievable year one. You go out and you make a slam dunk, a home run, a 50-R touchdown pass in the December portal by bringing Dary and Mintsa in to bring your quarterback from Tulane.

And as spring football has ended, there really have not been that many notable losses on the transfer portal front for the Blue Devils. I've been very pleased in that regard. Well, for Syracuse football, they've been getting skin to death in the transfer portal. Everyone's gone. It's not even just the portal. It's guys to the pros, which is actually a really good thing, sending over 10 guys to the pros this year. I mean, Bravo, Syracuse football for that. but also in the portal, they lose Trevor Pena.

They lose Marad Watson, both in the Spring Portal too. And that's what it irritates me so much. In the Spring Portal, if it happened in December, fine. But man, that just sucks. It happened in April. And you know what? You want to know how they're big losses? Look at the schools that are going again, these guys.

Penn State goes against Trevor Pena. Texas tampering with Marad Watson. Yes, they were actually. tampering. I mean, they were actually caught tampering. Will the NCAA do anything about it? Of course not. It's Texas. They're the Golden Boys with Archmanning. Why would they do that? If Syracuse was on the other end, you know there would be a penalty. That's neither here nor there. So football, well, they're definitely interesting for Syracuse. Basketball, on the other hand, yes, they're losing a lot of guys to the transfer portal. Nobody that's significant.

Nobody that's important one bit. They kept the two guys that they actually had to keep. J.J. Starling and Donnie Freeman, that's good. Everyone else, I remember at the beginning of the off season. Yep, goodbye. It's gone. Adios, Sianara. We don't need you. And they got Nathan George, which is a big addition. So hopefully Syracuse will be one of those surprise teams next year in the ACC. Jackson, I was surprised starting. Do what? Can we get rid of the spring portal, this 10-day window? Can we just make it one portal window like every other sport in college? Why do we need that second portal window just to benefit at the rates, really, let's be honest.

Because after spring practice, when I don't get all the reps I want, we got to pamper my booty and let me go out the door somewhere else. Or it just gives every other team another chance to reload their financial budget so they can go say, we kind of need that position now in the portal. So let's go and get this player from this stool. And yeah, that's why they have it. But they should. I'm in favor of, and we talked about this in a recent squad,

of expanding the winter portal window and doing a, way with the spring one because like I get it like you have opportunities you identify some more areas in spring football then you can go shopping but on the other side of it like the teams that lose players in the spring portal that sucks because then you don't have another window before the season to replace those guys so I don't think it's worth it personally on the north carolina side the biggest football loss we talked about last week on the show that's beau addkinson on the defensive line so I'll switch to basketball then where the the massive loss is ian jackson and not just because he's gone.

He was expected to be gone, but he was expected to be gone to the NBA draft and kind of his draft stock plummeted a little bit. And so instead of leaving for the draft or staying, he goes in the portal. So it's like a double whammy for North Carolina and ends up at St. John's, which makes a ton of sense.

He's from up there going to play for Coach Petino. But man, it hurts Carolina's offense and you lose him and RJ Davis. And now you're looking for who's going to be the dog? Who's going to be the lead guy, the leading score for this team. I don't know that we know yet, and I don't know that we'll know

until maybe December or January. All right, I'll jump in last, I guess. So in terms of losses for football, Jackson was mentioning tampering, which is actually kind of funny, because they just added George Rooks, our defense. We did that too.

Don't worry. Less than 24 hours after he enters the portal, he ends up at Syracuse, where his dad played. Hmm. Well, that was nothing wrong. Well, you can have them. I'm honestly not that that torn up of losing George Rooks because he's you know he was okay.

He was a starter. So that's that's probably the only transfer BC loss that I would consider any loss at all because you lost like a bunch of backups and guys that just whenever were playing. I know they were kind of adjusting the roster for that house settlement thing, but I talked to the staff there and they were like, yeah, we don't think it's going to happen. Actually, it was pretty smart because it's not. they ended up not losing anything. Now for basketball, if you guys listen to Lockdown BC, I'm very self-deprecating about this team.

BC basketball stinks and has stunk for a long time. I was a student there when they made the tournament. They were top 15 at one point. I missed Jared Dudley. I miss Craig Smith. I miss those ages. But I give credit to Earl Grant. Whether he should have come back or not,

it's another story, but he got rid of, I mean, four guys entered the portal. They didn't get rid of them. they entered the portal. And these guys were just not convinced. You know, Elijah Strong ends up in South Carolina. Chas Kelly was, he had no business being on the court. He just struggled all the time.

Dion Brown came in as a transfer. So they got rid of all these guys. And they brought in Jason Asimoda, who was a top 50 recruit last year. From Lynn, Massachusetts, he's a back, you know, he just never found time to play with Baylor. Comes back home. That's a big good story right there. If Earl Grant can coach him up, you got an athletic wing here, that can be fun. I still am worried about where this team's going to go next year, probably not that far.

But at least he went out there and addressed it. I think I like, you know, for what BC can do, I feel like he did a pretty good job. Guys, as someone who covers Miami, I've never heard this tampering word that you speak. I don't even know. I don't even know. I've never heard of that. In fact, like, I've noticed that I feel like Miami's had to like back off some of the players who enter the transfer portal because everyone wants to turn them in for tampering. Because there's this new thing. I call it the Pete Nacos curse.

Pete Nacos is an on three sports analyst. And like any time a player hits the portal, he's like, hey, Miami's a team to watch here. And every time he says that, Miami never gets that player because it's like he's, he's preemptively turning them in for tampering. But, you know, in terms of basketball transfer portal, there's a lot of turnover at Miami. I mean, Miami was awful last year, you know,

most of the season without Jim Laronago, who retired in December, you know, during the season. And so I would say the most impactful transfer portal loss for Miami was definitely my guy, Jaliel Bfea, who transferred to Alabama, you know, was a former five-star recruit. So losing him was unfortunate. Miami's had a lot of transfer portal gains because Jay Lucas, J.J. Jackson's pal is basically building a new team there in Miami, bringing in guys like Malik Rano, trade Donaldson, Ernest Uday, True Washington, through the transfer portal.

Miami, Louis is being in Newtick, right? Yes, yes. So, we'll see, we'll see. I talked to his dad. No, I talk to his dad. It's not going to happen. What? How dare you?

All right. Well, on the football side of it, you know, Miami has been pretty, oh, I think, by the way, I think there's a new Dalton Pence in here. Let me, let me, uh, we got two Dolton Pences. We got, we got, my wife, I entered the portal and I need many of them here. Do you have a twin? Listen, this is the only time I could be recording with someone across the world, and it does not matter. If I'm in the ACC squad, it's like, oh, buddy, you're out of here, pal.

You've got three minutes tops. Just so you guys know, Dalton's Wi-Fi router is a hamster running on a wheel that's turning the, turning all the gigabytes through there. Mark is doing a great job. He's on hour number 10. You know, for football transfer portal for Miami, they lost five players. in the spring window. None of them were projected starters for this coming season, but the most notable loss was safety, Zayquan Patterson, who was entering his second year. It was a former, you know, very high four-star recruit borderline five-star guy.

This is just disappointing that, you know, he didn't get to, we didn't get to see out his development a little bit longer at Miami because just had his, you know, true freshman season last year. You know, back in the winter portal window, I think the one starter that Miami did lose was Isaiah Horton, wide receiver that they lost to Alabama. He would have definitely been a starter this year for the football team. So honestly, I thought with all the changes and with all the new guys that Miami brought in, a lot of new players in December. They brought in four new players so far in April.

I was expecting more like turnover for guys leaving. So I actually thought that Christobald did a pretty good job with player retention considering. Because, you know, we're not, we're not Clemson with the transfer portal where nobody leaves. And, you know, once in a blue moon, somebody comes in. a lot of turnover, but the retention was pretty good. Now, we got to talk a little Bill Belichick on the other side, not transfer portal, but, and I got no love for Belichick as a lifelong Miami Dolphin fan. I mean, the guy had a stranglehold on the AFC East for like my entire childhood and adult life.

I got no love loss for Belichick, but I do feel like he's getting railroaded by the media with the way he's getting covered at North Carolina. You want to keep it locked right here. We're not done yet on the squad. Did you know your fire TV is also an Xbox? Yeah. Turn any TV into your gaming and entertainment hub with fire TV stick 4K devices. No console required.

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Fire 4K TV stick is a game changer. I play a lot of EAFC, formerly FIFA. I play a lot of college football 25. I'll be all over 26 when that comes out. Guys, do you ever find yourself flipping between apps to find one place that just works? With Fire TV Stick 4K, everything's in one place from Netflix to YouTube and beyond. Head to Amazon.com slash Fire TV locked on and get started. Xbox game pass ultimate subscription and compatible controller required, available on select devices, including Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and Fire TV Cube. Thank you for making the Lockdown ACC squad your first listen and your first watch. For your next listen, make sure you check out the portal podcast of our our guy Brian Smith.

He didn't want to talk about all of Florida States transfer portal losses. So he's not with us tonight. He hosts Locked on Seminoles, but he also hosts the portal. And he's been doing like two shows a day during this transfer portal window. I mean, Brian is keeping people so updated on everything that's going on. All right. So this segment, I've got to let Isaac shade by the first round. And then A.J. Black can buy the second round because the two of you guys between the Boston connection Chapel Hill, nobody covers Belichick better than Isaac and AJ. But Isaac, so a big story all over TMZ this week about, you know, Jordan Hudson, Belichick's, you know, 24-year-old girlfriend slash manager, I guess, you know, micromanaging interviews, storming off the CBS set,

reports about staff members at North Carolina, like kind of annoyed with the way she's handling Bill's business. I read through the report on TMZ, and I kind of came away feeling like they're just railroading this dude. Like, hey, some of the same. the headlines like news week had a headline like this could cost bill his job at north carolina like kind of clickbait is this so i got to ask you among unc circles how is this thing being covered in chapel hill well isn't clickbait the greatest uh currency there is and that's what everyone's trying to get in on this ever you know dating all the way back to december donno this isn't a new thing right like this is something i've been dealing with all off season of people just

finding a way to bash thing after thing after thing some of them there's probably some legitimacy to other like when everybody's like oh he hasn't signed his contract yet oh my goodness he's not going to coach like it like it's just like the whole time i'm just like okay like what are we doing now with the relationship with jordan it's this whole thing where your eyebrows are at least raised from the beginning of it just because of the age gap right like that's fine if you want to date somebody way older or younger than you in life but i think just because of social mores like when it's this big an age gap we all are like huh that's curious you know, and especially when it's somebody like him that is a pretty big gap and has a ton of money, right?

And like there's nothing, no one thing that Jordan Hudson has done that is like, this one thing is egregious and holy cow. But there's so many little things she's done along the way that are starting to add up to a puzzle that's kind of curious, right? And so like the asking to be CCed on everything, on all the correspondence, the name, herself the head of like Belichick media stuff. This whole thing with the CBS interview during Carolina. Carolina didn't have a spring game, but they had like a open practice for everybody in place of it. She was like out on the field and like doing things.

So there's like all of this that adds up to be like, I think you're inserting yourself a little more here than you should. And part of the problem for me is there doesn't seem to be, seem to be clear lines of delineation between the head coach's girlfriend and the head coach's like kind of manager or social media manager, that side of stuff. And that's where I think there's this weird, messy gray area that we got to get figured out. In terms of Carolina side of thing, I think the frustration, Donna, is what you pointed out. Most of the fan base that I hear from is saying, like, for example, who Dan Wolkin tweeted on Tuesday of this week, something like, oh man, when is this ever going to

be about football? It seems like it's always about when it's like, that's because the media and i know we're part of the media but but the media is always trying to be clickbaiting like you're talking about and finding just anything they can to poke holes in it and also to be fair to the media like it's april right now like we're all looking for stuff right and so it's but he he literally tweeted why why can't it be about the football and it's like we're i'm trying to make it about the football it's other people that are trying to find big national storylines that are making it not about the football. And so media, how do we make it about the football? By freaking making it about the football. It's not that hard. All right. So Bill Belichick, I'm,

I've been born, I was born in Massachusetts. I am a diehard Patriots fan. I'll tell you right off the front, all right off the bat. So when BC hired Bill O'Brien, I was pretty stoked about that because, you know, obviously he has Patriots connections. The interesting thing that I noticed about all this is Bill when he was at with the Pats, he had, he had, he had, he, his right hand man, his lieutenant, and that was Birge Nigerian. He was with him all the time. He was his, he did all of his, you know, logistical stuff. He put things together.

He's gone. He's now at BC with, with Bill O'Brien. And it sounds like Jordan's basically a 24-year-old girl doing what Burge did for 30 years for O'Brien, which is crazy because she obviously can't do that. What I also found was interesting was when Jordan put up that email, that crazy email that It was like, you know, Burge, Burge was C-Ced on that. If you look at the top,

unless there's another Burge, I don't know how many Burge is there. I've never, I've never heard another Burge. I'm guessing it's because Burge probably helped, because he again, he's right. He probably helped with the book,

but I was like, well, there he is. I'm like, did he end up at UNC? I'm like, no, no,

no, no, but I feel like that little piece there, really kind of connected where, you know, he helped ground Bill O'Bill-Belich, because otherwise, I see,

Velichick is kind of like this mad genius that kind of like is all over the place. And he needs those people to keep him in line. And now he's got someone who can't do that running things for him. And it's clear as day that that's starting to impact him. I don't think it's that big of a deal. But we'll have to wait to see how the football season starts. You know what I mean? I don't care.

I don't care. Like he's the head coach of North Carolina. I don't care who's doing. this, I don't care about his girlfriend. I really don't. I'm sorry with all due respect. I hope he's happy personally. It's all about do they win football games. That's it. It should be all about that. That's all it. But that's what it is to me. I do not care. I don't care about the CBS interview. I don't care about some random email. I don't care. If Carolina goes 10 and two next year in the regular season, guess what? Nobody's going to care. We're going to be talking about how great Carolina football is.

If they go 10 and 2, she's getting promoted to general manager after that. Maybe she'll deserve it. Well, Marty would have something to say about that. Yeah. Maybe she will deserve it if they go 10 and 2. And if they go 2 and 10, guess what? I won't care about the girlfriend. I'll care about how Bill Belichick did not coach his team properly and the team stunk.

That's it. Like, Isaac, I'll be that guy for you. I literally only care about the football here. That's it. What's crazy about Boston, too, is if you go to the Globe or the Herald, that story in Bill Belichick's exploit, are higher than anything Boston College out there. People just eat this crap up.

And you're right. Like, like Bill O'Brien had this nice, organized camp. And now all we hear about when you go to the Herald is Bill Belichick and his 24-year-old girlfriend. And I'll be fully transparent before I let JJ say his piece. Like, this is a story.

I don't really want to talk about it, but I feel like I have to because people, want like people want to consume this to an extent like i think it's got a shelf life like i'm not going to spend the next two months talking about jordan hudson but it's like i've kind of feel like i'm not doing my job if i don't talk about it even though i'd prefer to talk other things but jay jana we can make a career out of this for as long as bill bellichick is the head coach of north carolina dating a 24 year old we can make we can build a castle if we continue to talk about this i'm right there let's continue there's not there's not there's not

There's this time of year, we're so far away from football games being played. It's something to talk about. There is a shelf life here. I think it's fascinating. You don't see any other, you know, situations like this in the sport. Shutting down the interviewer trying to ask how they met. I mean, it's just, it's a, the content is certainly something you don't see every single day. So I'm quite fascinating.

I can see why she shut that down. How they met. Yeah. Well, they probably bet it shrewdaddies. com. Why do we care about how they met? I think the only reason that question is pertinent is because it's like, how did you like social setting brought together to people?

That's not happen every day. Why can't we just let people be people? Are they breaking the law? No, they're not breaking the law. Cool. Live your life. I don't care how you meant. Here's one thing I will push back on slightly to what Jackson said.

If Carolina is two and ten, there will be questions asked. about how big a distraction she was and what the factors were. Like, if she's not in the picture, is Carolina to a, like, that's the only thing I would push back on with that. Well, people will care. I won't. Yeah. Well, I know, I know Jackson doesn't care about this, but maybe he cares about what we got to talk about on the other side. Proposal, ACC basketball, to shorten the conference schedule to go from 20 conference games to 18.

would that help the ACC get more teams in the NCAA tournament? You want to keep it locked right here. We're not done yet on the squad. Do you ever check your bank account and wonder, where did all my money go? We've all been there, right? Between dining out, online shopping, entertainment, it's easy to lose track. That's where Monarch Money comes in, your personal CFO, giving you full visibility and control over your finances. Monarch Money isn't just a budgeting app.

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That's a deal. That's monarchmoney.com code locked on college for half off your first year. Thank you for making the squad your first listen. Make sure you check out all of our other shows. I host Locked on Cain's talking all things Miami. Jackson host Locked on Syracuse talking about, you know, outgoing and incoming transfer portal stuff. Because I think Syracuse has made some good incoming moves as well. Isaac Shade, locked on tar heels.

He also hosts Locked on College basketball. So we'll certainly lean on him for what we're about to talk about. J.J. hosting Locked on Duke, AJ Black, hosting Locked on Boston College. I think I'm going to let Jackson buy the first round on this one, because I think you've got a strong opinion on this. I do. This is expected to get voted in. The ACC, who they currently on their basketball schedule,

everybody plays 20 conference games. They want to shorten that down to 18. And there's an idea. Isaac can probably crunch the numbers about maybe this makes it more likely to get into the NCAA tournament. But Jackson, your thoughts on this proposal and if this should pass. Win more games. That's it. Say more.

See, if you win more games, you're more likely to make the NCAA tournament. The reason why the ACC didn't have a lot of teams in the tournament last year, is because their teams didn't win enough games. And when they played out of conference games, newsflash, they stunk. So you can make it 20, you can make it 18, you want to go down to 16, you want to play 22, I don't care.

Win your games. How about that? That's a good start. That would help. Yeah, absolutely. Wouldn't that get more teams in, though? Like if every team, you know, if we had eight teams win 25 games,

I think all eight would get in. Maybe we should do that. Yeah. And then this wouldn't be that big of a talking point or discussion. But I think the fact of the matter, when you look at the numbers, it is just so overwhelming how poor, you know, the league played this past year and the fact that you don't see other leagues playing 20 conference games. No, you do.

Okay. Literally the SEC is the only other Power 5 conference that doesn't play 20 league games. And that's where I was going because they had, you know, as many teams. Their whole conference got into the tournament. Right. No, it's funny, though, because when the ACC played against the SEC this year, what happened? 14 to 2. 2.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh. See, see, instead of worrying about the conference schedule, maybe you should worry about beating the other conference. Because if you beat the other conference, that's going to help you. That's going to help your perception. What hurt the ACC perception beyond just the performance in the NCAA tournament,

which wasn't good aside from Duke. but even before that, which is what really matters here, you didn't play well out of conference. You get your butts handed to you when you were playing the SEC. Now you want to go, you want to play less against your conference? I mean, you can do it fine. It's just you win more games.

And the thing to me is, if you cut down two games and everybody gets two games back, it's not like the conference can mandate who those two other non-conference of are going to be. The issue for me is that we've seen kind of how the Big 12 and the SEC have manipulated their non-con schedules to play, like, because the net is not just about who you play, but how badly you beat them.

So one of the ways to kind of game the net is to play lower rated teams, but just beat the snot out of them because that increases your efficiency margins, which grows where you're at in the net. I would rather see, like, if there was a way to mandate, some of those teams you play in non-con, awesome. And the conference can do things like bringing in conference scheduling strategists to help, but you don't have to take that advice. What I would rather see the ACC do is some kind of tiered system where you figure out

what teams are playing well so that the top half, the top quarter of the teams play more games against each other. So let's say that our five teams, let's say Miami, Syracuse, Carolina, Duke and BC were the top five teams in the ACC. Let's have a home and home against all four of those so that we're getting eight quad one games out of that instead of having to play the bottom teams a whole bunch of times. Now, I know I'm not, hold on. I'm not hearing that for the first time.

Don't you set the schedule before the season? Say what? So don't you set the schedule before the season. So how late in the year are you waiting to get those home and home games? That would have to be figured out through the first portion of the season, right? like as you figure out like where things are sitting in the net coming out of non-con play. But it's the kind of thing where you just lay the groundwork so that you know like, hey, we're going to play those games on these dates and we'll leave the travel schedule open.

And I don't like I understand pushback on what we got to get the schedule out. But I'll push back with two things on that. Number one, the NCAA tournament announces their field on Sunday night. They've got teams playing all over the country by Thursday and Friday. and eight teams playing in Dayton by Tuesday. And in COVID, think of how quickly we adjusted in scheduled games. It is logistically doable. You just got to lay the groundwork.

So if we can talk about scheduling better teams in non-con with this, all for it. But if we could find a better way to get more games against top teams, that's what I think is more critical. The first time I truly saw that, I know this is jumping from, you know, college athletics up a level. but a couple of years ago when the NBA debuted the end season tournament, I was thinking the exact same thing because I'm like, you don't know who you're going to play until the games are played to then be able to seat it. And somehow, some way, they did enough groundwork beforehand

to be able to make it work. And now nobody even thinks about that anymore. It's like, okay, here's an NBA Cup game. The schedule has been made up the way it needs to be and we're good to go. That's the only parallel I can kind of see to. AJ, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, man. I mean, there's a reason on Locked on BC, I don't talk basketball a lot because we play at a place called Conti Morg where no one comes, no one watches. So it's the Conti Morg effect.

That's what we call it, where no one shows up and we lull teams to sleep and beat them. Only teams that we ever sell out for are the four you guys up there. So Syracuse, UNC, and Duke. But, I mean, BC is a trainer, right? They have just not been competitive. Like I can't even get myself in that mind frame to talk about where BC would benefit. Like, yes. Like I would,

what I would imagine BC would do is play a whole bunch of buying games so they can just earn wins and not look terrible. But even BC every single year loses one of these stupid games. They lost to Dartmouth. They lost to Albany. I mean, I could go down Bryant, you mass wool. And it just kills the momentum of the season.

So it's like, do you go and play? like two ACC games and and probably lose or do you put you know like they would never I mean they might schedule they they went through a period where they were scheduling you know teams that were more on their level you know they were playing like South Florida and St. Louis and things like that but you know for a school like BC like I feel like it would be good just for like the health of the conference I you know for everyone like as as Jackson was saying you just got to win you got to win these games, you have to.

And to spread out potential losses out would be super helpful for those teams that are actually competitive. And also like the build off of AJ's point, I mean, Syracuse basketball just had its worst season in almost 60 years. And when they were playing in the beginning of the season against these supposed Cupcake teams, I mean, they went to double overtime against Youngstown State. They barely beat Colgate. Opening night, they needed a block.

a steal, a block shot from Chris Bell to beat Le Moyne. Le Moyne, who became D1 like two years ago. So like you could sit here and say, oh, we're going to help our tournament chances by giving them, you know, more cupcakes on the schedule. You know, it also requires that you beat the living piss out of those freaking cupcake teams. Like you actually got to beat them by 40 to 50 points

in order for it to benefit because if you beat them by 10, 15, it actually doesn't help you at all. So how about just get better, win more games, and we'll get more teams in the NCAA tournament. And Isaac, I don't hate your idea of the tiered schedule. I don't hate that at all. And I do think logistically, that is possible. No, I think the tiered schedule, and I've heard that suggested before, I think that's the best idea because I wholeheartedly agree with what Isaac said about the

shortening the conference schedule, because this is already being talked about, you know, teams are not going to go out and schedule really good competitive non-con games. They're going to use those extra two non-con games to try to find the worst cupcakes possible they can beat up on. So that's what's going to happen. But honestly, when it comes to this proposal, I think I feel the same way about this that Jackson felt about the Belichick story. Like, I don't care.

If you shorten it to 18 games, I don't care and I'll tell you why, because I also see, you know, We all know last year was a bad year for ACC basketball, right? Outside of JJ's Blue Devils, you know, carrying the conference into the final four, but I see teams responding, the coaching changes, aggressive in the transfer portal. That's what's going to make this conference better. Like, that's the meat and potatoes. Find better coaches, find better players. If you think it'll help you a little bit more if you drop a couple of non-con games,

fine. Tweak it however you want to tweak it. But at the end of the day, it's about who's coaching your team and who's actually lacing up their sneakers and going out there playing. That's what's going to matter. And raise more NIL. Yeah. Awesome.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate everybody for hopping in. Thank you so much to everyone watching and listening for making the ACC squad your first listened and your first watch. And huge shout out, AJ Black. We loved having him making his squad. Dave, he would awesome job, by the way. J.J. Jackson Jackson, J.J. Jackson,

are locked on Syracuse, Isaac Shea, locked on tar heels. I'm Alex Dono from Lockdown Keynes and we'll talk to you guys next time on another episode of the squad right here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.