The madness of conference realignment will continue in the 2024-25 NCAA men’s basketball season with a new-look ACC. The conference added new teams for the first time in a decade, when Louisville replaced Maryland in 2014.
As many of you have already heard, SMU, Stanford, and Cal will be the three new teams joining the ACC this fall.
It will be interesting, to say the least, to see how the three programs fare. None of them are coming off of a particularly impressive season, and they are joining a conference responsible for sending four different teams (NC State, Miami, Duke, UNC) to the Final Four in the past three seasons.
Nevertheless, during the madness of March, any team has a shot at winning the conference tournament and punching their tickets to the big dance—regardless of how they finished the previous year.
California Golden Bears
Washington State transfer forward Spencer Mahoney has announced his commitment to Cal to complete the roster for Mark Madsen. The 6-foot-9 New York native redshirted for the Cougars last season so will head to Berkeley with his full eligibility intact. https://t.co/7Kz9JARFlC
— Cal Rivals (@CalRivals) June 28, 2024
Head coach Mark Madsen is returning for his second season at the helm in California where he hopes to see an improvement from his first-year team, where Madsen and the Bears finished under .500 during the regular season and in Pac-12 play.
While Madsen’s 13 wins in 2023 don’t look like much, they’re a drastic improvement from the Bears’ disastrous 2022 season, which resulted in a record of 3-29 and the departure of former head coach Mark Fox.
Most of Cal’s key pieces from last season are gone, including guard Jaylon Tyson, who declared for the NBA draft following the 2023 season. Tyson averaged over 19 points for the Bears last season leaving a gaping hole in Madsen’s offense.
To replenish the scoring lost this offseason, the program welcomed in a handful of critical transfers, six to be exact, including Minnesota’s Joshua Ola-Joseph, UTSA’s Christian Tucker, and Spencer Mahoney of Washington State. The incoming pieces from the portal should help the Bears put up a stronger fight in their first ACC season.
Of the three ACC newcomers I expect Cal to have the best shot at finishing atop the ACC standings with the help of their proven head coach and experienced transfers. But, realistically, we can expect to see them finish somewhere in the middle of the pack.
SMU Mustangs
SMU, another team that showed significant improvement from 2022 to 2023, will enter their first year in the ACC as an underdog.
The Mustangs finished the 2023 season with a solid 11-7 record in the American Athletic Conference with impressive non-conference wins at home against West Virginia and on the road at Florida State.
Despite the marginally successful season, SMU opted to fire head coach Rob Lanier after just two seasons with the program and will welcome USC’s Andy Enfield as his replacement this fall.
After a decade at USC, Enfield will bring his Power-5 experience to Dallas hoping to create the ACC’s next powerhouse. In his time with the Trojans, Enfield led the team to five NCAA tournaments and coached top NBA talents like Evan Mobley and Onyeka Okongwu.
The hire looks suitable for the Mustangs, who recently acquired transfers Kairo Oquendo from Oregon and AJ George from Long Beach State via the portal.
From the players to the front office, this program has a completely new look. I expect them to finish near the bottom of the ACC standings in the 2024 season but I do think they have a promising future.
Stanford Cardinal
Unfortunately, one team must be last in everything. Not only do I expect Stanford to stand behind fellow newcomers SMU and Cal by the end of the 2024 season, but I expect them to be at the very bottom of the ACC.
The Cardinal team will be entirely new and will have to start from scratch.
They’ve lost the majority of their key players after the 2023 season, and have had to rebuild the team entirely. Guard Michael Jones and forward Spencer Jones have both graduated, and talents like Kanaan Carlyle, Andrej Stojakovic and Brandon Angel, all entered the transfer portal.
Mix that with their brand new head coach, Kyle Smith from Washington State, and this team is back to square one.
We will need to keep an eye on their incoming transfer class this season which includes graduate transfer from Duke University Jaylen Blakes, and former USC shooting guard Oziyah Sellers- but it’s hard to believe their impact alone could propel this team to anywhere near the top of the ACC.
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