Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford announced Thursday that beginning in the 2012-13 season the league will play an 18-game conference schedule in basketball. Good move. In fact, it’s a shame there can’t be more.

The best days of conference play were when each team played the other twice, once at home and once away. You always knew you had another shot at the team and it built interest among fans. To go a year without playing another conference opponent at all is ridiculous but even this plan might not change that.

With the ACC expanding to 14 teams, in order to play all home and away, you’d have to play 26 conference games and that’s undoable. The days of smaller conference are gone but for those who remember, those were the days.

“Our member institutions have been talking about this increase for awhile and knowing our league will be expanding to 14 in the future, we’ve decided to move to an 18-game conference schedule next year, regardless of our membership number,” Swofford said. “The additional conference games create a more equitable schedule and we’ve received significant feedback from our fans for more conference games.”