ACC Basketball schedule released for next two seasons

The ACC released its conference basketball games for the next two seasons today. The ACC features an 18 game slate with each school playing ten opponents once, and four opponents twice. The addition of Louisville replacing Maryland essentially keeps everything the same from last season. Looking at this past season's schedule, most of the home games from this year will be on the road and vice versa.

Pitt's four repeat opponents feature Florida State and a trio of ex-Big East rivals. Pitt will have a home and home with Boston College, Syracuse, and conference newcomer, Louisville. Pitt's other home gamesfeature a showdown with a possible top ten team, North Carolina. Also visiting the Pete next year will be long time nemesis, Notre Dame, along with Georgia Tech, Miami, and Clemson.

Pitt will make a trip to legendary Cameron Indoor Stadium next season and play in front of the Cameron Crazies against likely top 5 team in Duke. Pitt will also travel to Virginia, Virginia Tech, NC State, and Wake Forest.  Virginia Tech now features an old Pitt foe ex-Marquette coach, Buzz Williams. Virginia returns four starters from their ACC championship team, a team that beat Pitt twice by very close margins.

The release also takes care of the 2015-16 season as well. That season also features home and home games with Syracuse and Louisville, and Duke's second ever trip to the Petersen Events Center, but that may be looking too far ahead. As far as next season is concerned, the ACC is absolutely loaded. Duke and North Carolina welcome loaded recruiting classes with already good veteran teams in place. As mentioned before, Virginia brings back four starters themselves, and Rick Pitino's Louisville squad still has a few pieces lingering from their 2013 national championship team. Syracuse still has plenty of firepower, and many of the middle of the pack teams from last season figure to be better in 2015. The new look ACC could provide the same type of grind the Big East gave everyone for a long time.

The Pitt release reiterates that the Panthers will be participating in the Maul Invitational next season, along with these 18 conference games, plus a likely game in the ACC/Big Ten challenge, thus giving Pitt 22 games for next season. That would leave nine unknown opponents to give Pitt the full 31 game schedule for next season.

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