CLEMSON — When Clemson’s Brad Brownell and the rest of the ACC’s coaches met with Commissioner Jim Phillips last week on Amelia Island in Florida, it was made clear by all the league wants to do anything it can to get more than four teams into the NCAA Tournament.

This past season was a low point for a conference that has prided itself and built the brand as the best league in college basketball. However, that has not been the case the last few years.

The ACC has lost its reputation as the premier basketball conference in America, and that is something no one in the league can accept.

“There are a lot of challenges that go into all of this, but believe me, the biggest thing is the ACC is trying to fix that we got just four teams in the tournament,” Brownell said to The Clemson Insider at least week’s ACC Spring Meetings.

One way the league is trying to fix it is by going back to an 18-game schedule in conference play. The league announced that decision on May 7.

The new schedule aims to provide more opportunities for teams to win non-conference games and potentially boost their NCAA Tournament chances.

Brownell is torn on whether going to 18 games is going to help the conference. When the ACC went to a 20-game schedule a few years back, Clemson’s head coach was not sure if that was the right thing to do at the time.

Now that the conference is reverting back to 18 games, he still isn’t sure it is the right move to make. 

“I do not know if going to 18 changes it drastically. I think we, as a league, have to be smarter a little bit on how we schedule and that is everybody,” Brownell said. “We are all tied to each other so much because of these NET rankings that when you have a program that is struggling, it can really drag some teams down.”

Brownell feels they still need to do something different as a league.

“I think we do have to schedule a little smarter. It is going to be different every year with each program based on what that team has coming back and what their expectations are,” he said. “If you are a newer coach and you are not as sure in your building, maybe you need to secure more wins, so that you can keep your NET rankings at a place that helps other teams.

“If your team is really, really good, like our Elite Eight Team was…we thought we would be really good that year, so we scheduled really hard. We scheduled three or four (winnable) games and then we scheduled a lot of really hard non-conference road games. That is what our team needed at that time.”

What exactly is Brownell concerned about with an 18-game ACC schedule?

“The 18 conference games gives you more flexibility. What I am a little concerned with now is that I think there is going to be a new rule that goes through where we add another game to the schedule, probably starting next year,” he said. “So, if you are at 32 games and you are playing 18 conference games, now you have to schedule 14 games.

“It is not easy to schedule the kind of games you want to schedule, especially with these leagues getting bigger. There are not as many teams you can play because of their conference schedule.”