The ACC is “strongly considering” reducing its conference schedule from 20 games to 18 in order to bolster its participation in March Madness, according to CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello. This comes after the conference sent just four teams to the NCAA Tournament during the 2024-25 season.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, as well as althetic directors across the conference have reportedly been in “active discussions” with ESPN to impliment the changes into the upcoming 2025-26 season. According to the report, the proposal is expected to be approved by ACC administrators when the league meets for its annual spring meetings in May.

This model would consist of each team playing one game against each conference opponent, as well as two games against a “permanent rival.” Those two rivalry matchups would be home and home matchups for the two programs. For example, Duke and North Carolina.

The Blue Devils and Tar Heels ended up being two of the four teams that the ACC sent to the NCAA Tournament this past March. They were joined by the Louisville Cardinals and Clemson Tigers.

However, this won’t be the first time the ACC has played an 18-game schedule. That was the previous model the conference used before transitioning to 20 games during the 2019-2020 season, which coincided with the launch of the ACC Network. Though, the additions of Cal, Stanford and SMU will shake up how conference matchups occur from how it was then.

Despite only holding less than six percent of the total March Madness field, they were able to send one team to the Final Four in the Duke Blue Devils. They would go on to face the Big 12’s Houston Cougars in the matchup in San Antonio, where they’d fall 70-67 in a chaotic finish. Louisville, Clemson and North Carolina were all eliminated in the first round. However, the Tar Heels were on the winning end of their First Four game against San Diego State.

The ACC hasn’t won a national championship since the 2019 season, when the Virginia Cavaliers captured the title under former head coach Tony Bennett. This continued a trend of an ACC team winning the title every other year with Duke (2015) and UNC (2017) winning it all in previous seasons. Whether reducing the total number of league games will be the solution to the six-year drought remains to be seen, but the hope is for the new schedule to help the ACC gain some extra notoriety on a national, non-conference level.

BOCA RATON, Fla. – Autumn Courtney of the No. 24 Florida Atlantic softball team has been ranked No. 12 by Softball America in the Pitcher Power Rankings for the upcoming month of May.

 

The junior pitcher has been responsible for more than half of the Owls’ (41-9, 20-4) wins currently holding a 21-2 record with an additional save to her resume. Her 21 victories on the season are tied for third nationwide. 

 

In her first year at FAU, Courtney has been the top pitcher in the American Athletic Conference, leading the league in strikeouts (147, 35 more than second place) and has allowed the lowest batting average at .159, while her ERA of 1.90 is tied for second. She has won a league-leading four AAC Pitcher of the Week awards and has earned a spot on two weekly conference honorable mention lists.

 

Courtney and the Owls are in striking distance of back-to-back American Athletic Conference regular season championships, needing just one win to clinch. Their final regular season series will see them take on Tulsa from Friday, May 2 to Saturday, May 4 before the AAC Tournament from Wednesday, May 7 to Saturday, May 10.

 

To stay up to date on all things FAU softball, follow the Owls on social media @FAUSoftball.
 
 

I’ve been telling everybody who writes me worrying about the financial state of UVA Basketball, don’t worry, we have the money to play big-boy basketball.

Then I see today what Maryland is paying Buzz Williams, and, gotta say, sorry, I take it all back, y’all were right, I was wrong.

The Baltimore Sun did the public-records request thing that I do with UVA to get a copy of Williams’s contract, and, wow.

Maryland is paying Williams $5 million a year – the contract runs six years, and will pay out $30.3 million total.

Plus, the annual bonuses in the deal can net Williams an additional $950,000 per.

Maryland, you may remember, did a quick two-day national search after its guy, Kevin Willard, left for Villanova, saying he was concerned about Maryland’s ability to compete financially going forward.

Willard was getting $4 million a season from Maryland, and got a seven-year, $29.4 million deal to make the leap to Villanova.

OK, so, UVA was paying Tony Bennett a smidge over $4 million a season, by the terms of that phantom five-year extension that he signed last summer.

ICYMI

Bennett, as you know, stepped down in October, and the AD, Carla Williams, initiated a five-month search that ended with Ryan Odom taking the job.

I can tell you here that Odom wasn’t the first person formally offered the job, and I know who the first person was.

I’m not going to reveal what I know there because …

I’ve said too much already.

But now that I’ve teased you with that buried lede, I’ll move on to the part about what Odom signed for.

ICYMI

Odom’s deal runs six years and will pay him $21 million, so, an average of $3.5 million a year, with bonuses that top out at $950,000 a year, which he would get the full value of if he were to lead his team to, in order, an ACC Tournament championship, the NCAA Tournament, then the Sweet Sixteen, the Elite Eight, the Final Four, and finally, a national championship, along with a Top 10 finish in the national polls, and a national coach of the year award.

Bennett, in 2019, would have gotten $825,000 in bonuses under the terms set out in the Odom deal.

Where we are with all of this: it took us five months to get our second choice, and we’re paying our second choice 69.3 percent of what Maryland is paying the guy it needed two days to find.

And Maryland, I mean, come on, Willard had them 27-9 this past season, but they’d won three NCAA Tournament games total in the previous eight seasons, and put up a cumulative record of 70-61 in the previous four going into last season.

We’re not talking first-tier program there, is what I’m saying.

The athletics department at Maryland ran a $5 million deficit last year, for christsakes.

But they’ve got more money than we do, apparently.

A lot of tough conversations have taken place in the BYU football offices at the Student Athlete Building the past three weeks, as coaches have started the unpleasant process of narrowing the roster to 105 players before the 2025 season.

Already, more than a dozen guys have entered the transfer portal since spring camp ended at the end of March, most of them having been told that there’s no room for them in the program any longer.

Of course, several players who were expected to be key contributors in 2025, guys such as true freshman running back Cale Breslin, senior receiver Keelan Marion and junior linebacker Harrison Taggart, are in the portal for other reasons, most likely linked to NIL or the desire for bigger roles this coming season.

Special Collector’s Issue: “1984: The Year BYU was Second to None”

Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football’s 1984 National Championship season.

They will be difficult to replace, but that’s the nature of college football these days. Coaches have been bracing for it for years now. Rosters won’t be completely set until the season kicks off in late August.

However, those cuts may be put on hold, albeit a bit too late for some players who have already moved on. Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken told NCAA attorneys and the other parties involved in the House v. NCAA settlement that she won’t approve the settlement unless the roster limits issue is revisited, and tweaked, to allow grandfather current student-athletes from roster limitations.

Before spring camp even began, no fewer than 15 players who were on the 2024 BYU roster of 123 players had announced their intentions to enter the portal when it opened last December, most notably safety Crew Wakley, tight end Jackson Bowers, running back Miles Davis and defensive end Aisea Moa. Wakley landed at Purdue, Bowers at Oregon State, Davis at Utah State, and Moa at Michigan State.

“We have got to adjust again, and it stinks when you work on really getting the team as deep and as strong as you can, and there is not a lot of drop-off (from first team to second team) and all of a sudden you have to adjust and get the roster trimmed down.”

—  BYU coach Kalani Sitake

During that same time frame a few months ago, BYU coaches found replacements and filled holes in their two-deep, adding the likes of Utah defensive end Keanu Tanuvasa, Michigan offensive lineman Andrew Gentry, Utah tight end Carsen Ryan, Southern Utah offensive lineman Kyle Sfarcioc and Texas defensive end Tausili Akana, among others.

Look for those guys to make major impacts in 2025.

“I felt really good about this year, especially going into this offseason and this spring ball, about our whole roster at 123 being super strong and super deep,” said BYU coach Kalani Sitake. “Then to have this situation where now the roster is going to be cut to 105, I am not the only one that is complaining about it. That is everyone in college football that doesn’t want to see that.

“We have got to adjust again, and it stinks when you work on really getting the team as deep and as strong as you can, and there is not a lot of drop-off (from first team to second team) and all of a sudden you have to adjust and get the roster trimmed down,” Sitake concluded.

What BYU coaches concluded after the 2023 season in which the Cougars went 5-7 and failed to make a bowl game was that more continuity was needed. They only brought in a couple transfers, difference-makers such as Weber State defenders Jack Kelly and Marque Collins.

The strategy was the same this year — an emphasis on continuity over quick-fix additions — although the surprise (to some) departures of Marion and Taggart will likely force coaches to look for instant replacements for those two key players.

The Cougars are back in the player acquisition business again, just like almost every college football team in the country. It’s a domino effect, obviously.

As we’ve done the past few years, the Deseret News presents its list of five players who stood out in March during media viewing portions of practices, or who were singled out by coaches as having made significant improvement since the season ended.

Middle linebacker Siale Esera

Midway through spring camp, defensive coordinator Jay Hill said Esera and the since-departed Taggart were in a tight battle to be the Cougars’ starting middle linebacker in 2025, a statement that surprised some folks because Taggart was a mainstay at the position in 2024, starting in 12 of 13 games and making 69 tackles.

Really, it was just a testament to how well Esera, the former four-star recruit from Timpview High, was playing in camp. Esera suffered a Lisfranc foot injury in 2023 and played in only four regular-season games in 2024 in order to preserve his redshirt season.

He looked great in the 36-14 win over Colorado in the Alamo Bowl, recording two solo tackles and a sack, and at 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds he should be a force for BYU in the middle of the defense the next two or three years. If Esera can stay healthy, the loss of Taggart won’t hurt too much.

The Cougars also have Miles Hall and Ace Kaufusi as backups to Esera, and they also looked good in the spring.

Tight end Carsen Ryan

The aforementioned Bowers’ transfer to Oregon State and freshman Ryner Swanson’s departure on a church mission to Kenya necessitated a quick fix at tight end from the transfer portal, and BYU coaches hit paydirt in the form of Ryan, a 6-4, 252-pound pass-catcher who played at UCLA and Utah. Swanson, coincidentally, was on this list last year after turning heads in spring camp.

BYU is also replacing several tight ends who exhausted their eligibility — Mason Fakahua, Mata’ava Ta’ase, Keanu Hill and Ray Paulo.

“We have been making a point of getting the ball to Carsen every day in practice,” offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick said the second week of spring camp. “… Through seven or eight practices, Carsen is one of our best players on offense.”

Ryan caught 10 passes for 113 yards and a touchdown at Utah last year.

“He’s a heckuva football player,” BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff said. “I love throwing him the ball.”

Cornerback Jonathan Kabeya

Signed in 2024 as a three-star defensive back out of Euless, Texas, Kabeya began turning heads in fall camp last year, but was stuck behind veterans like Jakob Robinson, Marque Collins, Evan Johnson and Jayden Dunlap on the depth chart in 2025.

Still, the 5-foot-10, 177-pound speedster appeared in nine games, mostly on special teams, and recorded his first pass breakup in the 38-9 win over Kansas State. He finished the season with four tackles.

Kabeya picked up where he left off in spring camp, and very well could be BYU’s primary nickel back in 2025, if he continues to progress.

“I think Jonathan Kabeya and Tre Alexander, some of the young corners, have made great strides,” defensive coordinator Jay Hill said on March 15, about midway through camp. “That has been a good deal.”

Kabeya’s parents, Edward and Pauline, migrated to the United States from Congo and he’s best friends with Utah linebacker Jaeden Bland, according to his profile on BYUCougars.com.

Running back Sione Moa

Junior LJ Martin is hands-down BYU’s top returning running back, and will be Roderick’s featured back all season, if the product of El Paso, Texas, can stay healthy. But Martin has gotten dinged up in each of his first two seasons in Provo, and BYU almost certainly will need a couple of other decent running backs to carry some of the load.

Enter sophomore Sione Moa, who made a splash last year before suffering an undisclosed injury in the Kansas State game. He returned for the Alamo Bowl and had four carries for 25 yards and a touchdown vs. Colorado.

Moa and redshirt freshman Pokaiaua Haunga, who was on this list last year and also contributed in the bowl game with six carries for 25 yards, got a lot of work in spring camp and showed well, according to Roderick.

“They are both very good players. Those guys have had a great spring, and Pokai is one of the most dynamic guys on this team, and Sione, I mean, he looks like a fullback, but that guy can dunk a basketball any way you want. He is ambidextrous. He throws with both hands. He is a really good receiver, a good blocker,” Roderick said. “He is a fantastic athlete as well.”

Free safety Faletau Satuala

Senior Tanner Wall was one of the unsung heroes of the 2024 campaign, emerging as the starting free safety and displaying outstanding ball-hawking skills after originally walking on at BYU. Had the aforementioned roster cuts arrived a few years ago, Wall probably wouldn’t still be on the team.

This spring, Wall got in some good work and is entrenched as the starter again in 2025, but BYU fans can rest assured that there is plenty of talent behind him.

Toward the end of spring camp, sophomore Faletau Satuala started making some big plays and showed the promise that accompanied him out of Bountiful High in 2024 when he was the top-rated recruit in the state, in some publications.

Satuala appeared in 12 of 13 games in 2024, and recorded an interception against UCF. He and strong safety Tommy Prassas, who made this list last year, are future stars on Hill’s ever-improving BYU defense.

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit Monday that had been brought against the NCAA by several former college basketball players, including Kansas standout Mario Chalmers, after ruling its claims fell outside the four-year statute of limitations.

The lawsuit, which included 16 total players who played before June 16, 2016, claimed that the NCAA had enriched itself by utilizing their names, images and likenesses to promote its men’s basketball tournament. That date in 2016 is the earliest date for players to be included in the House v. NCAA antitrust settlement awaiting final approval from a federal judge.

Advertisement

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer pointed toward a four-year statute of limitations for federal antitrust violations, despite the lawsuit contending that the law continues to be breached by the NCAA’s use of the players’ NIL in March Madness promotions.

Chalmers famously hit a tying 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds left for Kansas in the 2008 title game against Memphis, a highlight that remains a staple of NCAA Tournament packages. The Jayhawks went on to win the championship in overtime.

“The NCAA’s use today of a NIL acquired decades ago as the fruit of an antitrust violation does not constitute a new overt act restarting the limitations clock,” Engelmayer wrote in the 34-page decision. “Instead, as the NCAA argues, the contemporary use of a NIL reflects performance of an aged agreement: a contract between the student-athlete and the NCAA under which it acquired footage and images of the plaintiff.”

Engelmayer also noted that the plaintiffs were part of the class in O’Bannon v. NCAA, the 2015 case that helped to usher in the age of NIL payments so the lawsuit was not demonstrably different from other settled cases involving the athletes.

___

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports