Well before schools pieced together a roster of nonconference opponents — apart from the November 29-December 1 Big Ten/ACC Challenge — the ACC released the 20-game league schedules for each of its 15 teams.
The ACC appropriately seeks neutrality in scheduling, but that doesn’t prevent unequal challenges arising within league play. Some unfairness is inevitable, a matter of who plays whom, and where.
As Mike Krzyzewski once noted, Duke’s schedule doesn’t command higher marks for degree of difficulty because his team doesn’t get to play Duke.
Prior to last season, we used how often schools had to play the previous year’s top four finishers, and where they met, as a gauge of scheduling toughness.