The reason ACC Basketball has been really down the last few years has very little, if anything, to do with the league playing 20 conference games each season.

Poor coaching hires, too many schools reluctant at diving into the NIL world, and such an overemphasis on football that some schools simply nodded at basketball while walking to the football centers on their respective campuses.

It appears, at least on paper, some ACC programs took steps forward with some quality coaching hires here over the last six weeks. That is a positive.

Another is for the commissioner to show better leadership and the league to generate more revenue any way it can. Improving the ACC Network is one way, as it needs an overhaul to give any ACC fan reason to watch.

Another is to finally junk the 20-game conference schedule back to 18 games. It was a bad idea and often debunked by coaches around the league

So bad that former North Carolina Coach Roy Williams panned the idea from the outset and usually had some clever ways of criticizing it.

“It does make it harder,” he said on media day in October 2018. “You can't play the Golden State Warriors one night and Boston Celtics the next night and Portland the next night in college because you have to have some time where your guys gain some confidence.”

Two more games means that many more losses by ACC members and two fewer nonconference games to build resumes for individual teams and, as a result, the league. This space has been against it all along and welcomes the idea of going back to 18 games.