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Ironing out problems of expansion
By Jerry Ratcliffe  / Daily Progress staff writer
May 9, 2003
 

Scattershooting around the sports world, while wondering how many fans will be at Boar’s Head next week to watch tennis as opposed to how many will be there to watch Anna Kournikova ...
ACC expansion
While there is no window on expanding the league to 12 or more teams, there is only so long the flirtation can last without losing momentum and having to shelve the idea for a later date.
Right now it appears Miami would be willing to make the jump if the ACC offered. Syracuse and Boston College would probably follow within days if not hours or minutes. Virginia Tech would jump in a heartbeat and now there is a rumor that UConn could be a target because of the huge following the school has, a new $91 million football stadium and a huge presence in the New York television market.
The ACC needs seven votes and we know that Duke and UNC are definite “no votes.” We’re not totally sure where N.C. State, Wake Forest and Virginia stand. It depends on who you talk to.
We do know that Mike Krzyzewski is flat out against it, but this is a football driven proposition that seems to have the league’s basketball coaches wringing their hands almost as much as the athletic directors from the Big East.
One of the proposals that might soothe some of the uneasiness of ACC hoops coaches would be to split the conference into these two divisions:
Conference A: Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State and Wake Forest.
Conference B: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Syracuse and BC.
That would allow all but one of the original ACC members (Clemson) to stay together and play each other twice a year in basketball, while letting the schools that most favor expansion have a division of their own with the new members. Yes, Conference A would be a hoops heavy league, but Conference B would be a football heavy league.
Virginia football fans would favor that arrangement because it would give the Wahoos a good shot at being in the conference championship game every year. ACC officials would like it because the loser of the FSU-Miami game would have time to win its way into contention to give the league a potential second BCS team, which is one of the things this whole deal is about to begin with.
Slo to Bonnies
Former UVa player and assistant coach Anthony Solomon, known to most of us as ‘Slo,’ has been named head basketball coach at St. Bonaventure. It is Solomon’s first head coaching job.
Solomon played for Terry Holland, was an assistant to Jeff Jones and went from UVa to an assistant coaching job at Clemson before landing at Notre Dame the past three seasons.
“St. Bonaventure is a tradition-rich basketball program that really excites me,” said Solomon. “I feel honored and blessed that I am able to begin my career as a head coach at St. Bonaventure. The values that are stressed by the school are the values I’ve lived throughout my life. With my 15 years of experience in the coaching profession, I feel that I have prepared myself for this opportunity.”
Slo takes over a Bonnies team that finished 13-14 last season.Free throws ... One NBA scout told this columnist during a recent trip to Grandfather Mountain (N.C.), that while former UVa hoopster Travis Watson played well at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, attended by reps from just about every NBA team, that Watson’s chances of making it to the pros are questionable. ... “He can rebound great but he has a lot of trouble scoring,” said the scout, who noted that Watson may lack the shooting ability needed to make an NBA roster. ...Want to get away? Remember the recent candy bar commercial that featured a worker misspelling a football team’s name in the end zone? Well, guess what has happened at Clemson? Seems the folks who painted Littlejohn arena’s name on the floor spelled it as two words: Little John. Time for a mulligan. ...The nation’s highest-priced regular season football ticket that we have managed to find for this coming season will be the Florida State at Notre Dame game, with tix going for $48 each. Scalpers will charge considerably higher. ...Last but not least, Georgia Tech women’s basketball coach Agnes Berenato has left Atlanta to take the same job at Pitt.

 

 

Expansion issue full of complications
By Jerry Ratcliffe  / Daily Progress sports editor
May 6, 2003
LINVILLE, N.C.
While Miami athletic director Paul Dee admitted Monday that he has had conversations with the ACC about the possibility of becoming a member of the league, the expansion issue is a complicated one.
The ACC has already said that if it expands, then it would rather take three teams instead of just one. A 12-team league would allow for two divisions and a conference football championship game.
Sportswriters attending the ACC’s annual get together at Grandfather Mountain this week, have been busy exploring where the league stands on expansion but haven’t gotten many solid answers. Maybe that’s because the league doesn’t have a solid answer at this point.
The consensus of opinion seems to be that Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson and Maryland are in favor of adding at least three schools, most likely: Miami, Syracuse and Boston College. It appears that North Carolina and Duke have given the most resistance to the idea, while N.C. State, Wake Forest and Virginia are somewhat in limbo.
Sources believe that State, Wake and UVa could be persuaded to support expansion if it comes to a vote, which would require a 7-2 margin in order for approval. Miami said that while there have been discussions with the ACC of late, there hasn’t been an offer from either party to do anything official.
There are two reasons for that stance. Miami was somewhat burned the last time the issue came up, a few years ago, and probably doesn’t want to leave itself exposed again for a potentially similar rejection.
The last time expansion surfaced, the ACC clearly wasn’t ready to expand. At that time, the issued was muddied by a number of questions.
According to one inside source, there were a lot of conditional votes tied to expansion last time out. One school would vote for expansion only if the ACC continued to play a round robin schedule with all conference teams. Another school wanted to lighten its football schedule, so clearly didn’t want to play everyone else in the league.
Other schools’ votes were contingent upon what division they would be in and who were the other members of their division. Some schools were OK with bringing in Miami, but wanted to know who the other two schools would be before they could vote on the issue.
Clearly, Florida State needs to bring Miami into the ACC in order to have a greater presence in its own state, which is still dominated by the rival Florida Gators and the SEC. Clemson and Georgia Tech also feel a great SEC presence in their states, so expansion could help make the ACC a bigger, more powerful league from Miami to Boston.
One problem is the Big Four. North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State and Wake Forest have been rivals for ages. They have all played each other since seemingly time began. Two divisions would most likely put UNC and Duke in one division, N.C. State and Wake in another division.
Apparently the ACC has discussed the possibility of playing a “rival game” outside of the division, which would allow UNC and N.C. State to play each other. However, State and Duke would not play.
Where does Virginia Tech fit into this picture? Some sources say Tech doesn’t fit, which has some folks in Blacksburg a little nervous about the whole thing.

If the ACC takes Syracuse, Miami and BC, and the Big East crumbles back into a basketball only league, then the Hokies could be left out in the cold. Some sources have already suggested a new league of Big East leftovers, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Rutgers, and UConn, forming a new league with Louisville, Cincinnati and possibly others, that could include Pittsburgh. Some say Pitt might attempt a jump to the Big 10.
UVa President John T. Casteen III went on record a few years ago saying that he would support ACC expansion only if it included Virginia Tech. But if the rest of the ACC doesn’t feel that Tech brings enough to the table, then Casteen’s vote could be irrelevant in that manner.

Some Virginia fans would like the Hokies in the ACC because the Cavaliers play them any way and that Tech’s rise in football has done nothing but force Virginia to get better. Other UVa fans believe that if Tech is left to fend for itself, then the Hokies’ strength would be greatly diminished.

Whatever the case, rumors continue to fly here at this ACC get together. If you believe some, then the ACC expansion could be a done deal by the end of the week. Others insist that the ACC has until the winter of 2004, just before the new BCS contract talks begin.

Regardless of what we believe, expansion should be a major point of discussion when the ACC schools and the conference officials conduct their annual meeting at Amelia Island, Fla., beginning Sunday.

 

 

U.Va. baseball program hitting HRs
By ED MILLER, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 9, 2003

The “Blue Monster” rises three stories above Virginia’s Davenport Field, 408 feet from home plate in dead center, the deepest part of the park.
On a March afternoon, shortstop Mark Reynolds guessed right on a three-ball, one-strike pitch and drove an outside fastball where none had gone before, up and over the 35-foot-high panel.

“The farthest ball I ever hit,” he said. And maybe as good an example as any of how far the resurgent Cavalier baseball program has come in a short time. When Reynolds, a graduate of First Colonial High, signed with Virginia in the spring of 2001, the Blue Monster didn’t exist. Davenport Field didn’t exist. In fact, the baseball team itself seemed on the verge of irrelevance.

To close an operating deficit in the athletic department, a university task force recommended that sports be placed in four “tiers.” In the top tier were football and basketball. In the bottom, slated to be stripped of most of their scholarship dollars, travel budget and coaching staff, were several “non-revenue” sports, including baseball.

“I talked to coach, and he told me he would give me a release from my scholarship,” Reynolds recalled. “But I was like, 'No, I’ve already committed to Virginia.’ ”

The commitment paid off, sooner than Reynolds could have hoped. Just a few months after the task force proposal, the “tiering” idea was rejected by the U.Va. Board of Visitors. Shortly after that, the school received two anonymous donations of $2 million, to be used toward building a new baseball stadium.

The influx of cash, and talent, has helped Virginia put together its best season in years. With seven regular- season games remaining, the Cavaliers are 26-18 and in the hunt for their first NCAA tournament bid since 1996.

“We’ve kind of got our destiny in our own hands,” coach Dennis Womack said. “We have to finish at least .500 in our league, and if we can do that, they’ll have to look at us very, very closely.”

Virginia is 9-8 in the ACC, a league loaded with traditional powers such as Florida State, Georgia Tech and Clemson.

It’s not a position Womack could have imagined they’d be in two years ago, when the task force report put his team’s future — or at least its future competitiveness — in doubt, and spurred talk of mass player transfers.

“That was obviously a difficult time,” said Womack, Virginia’s coach since 1981. “It was really a jolt to everybody’s system within the U.Va. athletic family.”

A jolt that stirred baseball supporters into action. Virginia has fielded a team since 1889. Parents of baseball players formed an organization, “Save Virginia Baseball,” and alumni also stepped forward to help.

Once the $2 million was in hand, construction began on a new stadium. It was dedicated last April.

The 2,000-seat stadium is a huge improvement over the old facility, located behind the Lannigan Field track. In less than a year, Virginia went from one of the poorest facilities in the ACC to one of the finest.

“It’s really helped our recruiting,” Womack said. “If kids don’t choose to come here, it won’t be because of the facility anymore. “We think we’re going to get a little bit better type of player here.”

They already have. Among this year’s freshmen is Ryan Zimmerman, a Kellam graduate who stepped in immediately at third base and is batting .324. Reynolds, who plays next to him at short, is hitting .314 with a team-high nine home runs.

The Virginia Beach duo has helped shore up the left side of the infield. Defense, a liability last year, is now one of Virginia’s strengths.

So is pitching, despite the loss of the team’s two top starters.

Both Mike Ballard, a freshman from Ocean Lakes, and Jeff Kamrath, a junior from Houston, are out for the season with arm injuries. Womack has shuffled his rotation and received strong performances from several players.

Chief among them is Joe Koshansky, voted the team’s MVP at the annual banquet last week. Koshansky leads the team in ERA at 1.79, and has been the team’s stopper on Sundays, posting wins over Miami and N.C. State that prevented the Cavaliers from being swept in a pair of three-game series.

Koshansky plays first base the rest of the week, and is batting .336.

Overall, the team is batting .309. The Cavaliers are second in the ACC in team ERA, at 3.09 and are first in fielding percentage (.973) during conference games.

Virginia was picked seventh in the ACC after finishing 25-32 last year.

“We have a nice little club,” Womack said. “We just don’t have pitching depth. But we’re hanging in there and trying to play hard.”

Womack thinks Virginia’s strength of schedule – the Cavaliers have played Miami, Auburn and VCU – will force the NCAA selection committee to take a long look at his team.

If Virginia doesn’t get in this year, there’s always next, and the year after. Just two of the team’s regulars are seniors, and recruiting has again gone well.

“It definitely feels a lot better that the school is back behind us,” Reynolds said. “I guess made the right choice.”
 

 

Shakeup makes Beamer uneasy
Coach fears Hokies could get left out if the ACC expands
By Dave Johnson
Daily Press
Published May 9, 2003

PORTSMOUTH -- Frank Beamer doesn't expect it to happen. But in an era when money talks louder than ever in college athletics, who knows?

Expansion of the Atlantic Coast Conference is this spring's hot topic, and Beamer, the head coach and architect of Virginia Tech's football program, is on the outside looking in. Most believe that if the ACC goes forward, it will add Miami, Syracuse and Boston College. That probably would break up the Big East, Tech's home since 1991, as a football conference.

And that's a notion Beamer, who with Virginia coach Al Groh was in town Thursday for the Bon Secours Hampton Roads Golf Classic, would rather not consider.

"I don't want to think about that now," Beamer said. "We've got to hope to get things straight away in the Big East. If not, we hope we'll be one of the three teams taken. I'm not going to get to the next thing yet.

"I still don't think it will happen. To me, it just doesn't make sense. We've got two great conferences in the ACC and Big East where we've got access to the national championship game. To give up two entries to the Bowl Championship Series and go to one, that doesn't make any sense. ... I'll say this: I think it'll be over in the next couple of weeks - one way or another."

Beamer says the worst-case scenario - expansion that does not include the Hokies - concerns him. That would send Tech scrambling for a new conference with limited options. If the Hokies have a Plan B, school officials are mum.

For the ACC to expand, which hasn't happened since Florida State was added in 1991, it needs the approval of at least seven of its nine presidents. North Carolina and Duke are firmly in the "no" camp. N.C. State is believed to be the swing vote. There's been no indication when a vote will take place, though it isn't expected to be at the league's spring meeting next week in Amelia Island, Fla.

The ACC had shelved expansion talk the past few years, but the possibility of adding Miami, the 2001 football national champion and '02 runner-up, has renewed interest. To create a 12-member league, which would split into two divisions, two of three Big East schools - Syracuse, Boston College and Virginia Tech - would come along. (According to conference bylaws, schools that leave the Big East must pay a $1 million penalty).

The Hokies have ACC connections. Georgia Tech president Wayne Clough was dean of engineering at Virginia Tech in the early 1990s, and Yellow Jackets athletic director Dave Braine previously held the same post in Blacksburg. Clemson AD Terry Don Phillips was a Hokie assistant football coach in the 1970s.

Even without friends in high places, Beamer believes Tech has a strong case to be included.

"I think we've put ourselves in as good a position as we can," Beamer said. "We've been in the Associated Press poll 81 out of 82 weeks and 70 straight weeks. Our fans fill the stadium, we're an attractive bowl team because of our fans, we have TV appeal that started with Michael Vick ... when you put all that together, that's attractive if expansion does take place."

Groh said he is for expanding - in principle.

"I want more particulars before I jump up and say, 'Yes!' " he said. "I'd like to know exactly who (would be added), the alignment of different divisions, the schedule procedures. ... I'm a football guy. And from a football standpoint, if Miami is involved, that certainly would be a good football addition. As to whether there would be more teams, that hasn't been discussed with me.

"Obviously, within recent years, there's been a significant change in the landscape of college athletics. And that's probably something we should anticipate continuing. In that respect, it behooves the ACC to be proactive instead of, all of a sudden, reading the newspaper and seeing that things have changed, and not in favor of us."

Groh said he would have no reservations about Virginia Tech joining the ACC.

"We have to take them on every year," he said. "I don't think it would have a dramatic bearing. I think they've proven over an extended period of time they have the ability."
 

 

ACC not option for Hokies
Miami, Syracuse, BC the favorites
BY MIKE HARRIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER May 08, 2003

Barring a change of heart from several schools, Virginia Tech will not be included if the Atlantic Coast Conference votes to expand.

Sources in the ACC said yesterday they weren't positive the league would expand. But they were certain that, if expansion does occur, it would be three schools rather than one and those three would be Miami, Boston College and Syracuse.

"Virginia Tech does not have the votes," one source said.

Expansion talk heated up recently when Miami, the Big East Conference's premier football program, confirmed it had discussed the possibility of joining the ACC. The league is intrigued by the possibility of growing from nine to 12 schools, splitting into two divisions and creating a lucrative championship football game.

Miami was the 2001 national football champion and 2002 runner-up.

Seven of the ACC's schools must vote for expansion. Sources said Maryland, Wake Forest, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Clemson are in favor. North Carolina and Duke are not.

North Carolina State is, at this point, the swing vote and is said to be leaning toward expansion.

Virginia and Georgia Tech have argued for Virginia Tech's inclusion, sources said, but are not prepared to change their vote if the Hokies are not included.

If expansion does occur, sources said it almost certainly would happen by the end of June and the reconfigured league would begin competition in 2004. Big East bylaws allow a school that announces its intention to leave by June 30 to depart after one more academic year. Even so, schools leaving the Big East must pay an unspecified financial pen- alty.

Virginia, because of its location, and Georgia Tech, because of its personnel, are the most logical choices to support Virginia Tech. Georgia Tech Athletic Director Dave Braine is a former AD at Virginia Tech. Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough is a former professor at Virginia Tech.

Braine would not comment on expansion yesterday. Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage was unavailable. Sources said the ACC has told its administrators to make no more public comment on the expansion issue.

Even if the seventh vote for expansion is secured, a bigger ACC is not automatic. Though none of the schools has said so publicly, sources said all three are prepared to accept if an invitation is extended.

But one possibility that has been discussed is the eight Big East football schools breaking away to form their own league. One source said Miami may be angling for this scenario and using its flirtation with the ACC as a way of forcing the issue.

Either way, Miami is the key to everything if expansion gets the necessary votes. If the Hurricanes join the ACC, Syracuse and BC are sure to follow.

That scenario would leave Virginia Tech scrambling for a suitable home.

The Hokies and the other four football schools - West Virginia, Connecticut (replacing Temple in 2005), Rutgers and Pittsburgh - could try to entice other schools to join the league. But their membership would have to be approved by the rest of the league, unless the schools wanted to break away to form a new alliance.

Tech also could look to join another league. Geographically, the Southeastern Conference would make the most sense but the 12-team SEC may not be interested in expansion.

"Since the SEC voted to expand to 12 teams in 1990, we have not discussed any further expansion," SEC spokesman Charles Bloom said yesterday. "Through media reports, we are keeping abreast with the changing landscape of conference alignments in intercollegiate athletics."

Virginia Tech Athletic Director Jim Weaver did not return phone calls seeking comment yesterday. A spokesman for President Charles Steger said Steger had no comment.

 

 

U.VA. NOTES
May 08, 2003

HOOP IT UP: The fourth annual Southern Invitational, featuring some of the nation's top high school basketball players, will be held this weekend at the University of Virginia and in gyms around Charlottesville.

Ninety-six teams have signed up for the tournament, which has three divisions: 17-under, 16-under and 15-under. Recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons and the Hoop Group again are coordinating the event.

Games will run from 7:30-11 p.m. tomorrow, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and 8:50 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Among those expected to play this weekend are point guards Marquie Cooke (Suffolk), Sean Singletary (Philadelphia) and Kyle Lowry (Philadelphia), shooting guards Tyree Evans (George Wythe), Andre Ingram (Highland Springs), Joe Posey (King George) and Jose Garcia (Lynchburg) and wings J.R. Smith (New Jersey) and Josh Smith (Atlanta).

U.Va.'s recruiting targets for 2004-05 include Cooke and Singletary, who, like forward Jason Cain, made the Philadelphia Daily News' all-city team this season. Cain committed to U.Va. late last month.

WAITING GAME: As of Sunday, Cain still had not received his scholarship papers and thus had not signed with U.Va. But he said he wasn't concerned and expected his letter of intent to arrive soon.

At 200 pounds, Cain knows he must get stronger to play in the ACC but doesn't have easy access to a weight room. He's growing, though. Cain, who stood 6-9 at the beginning of his senior season at John Bartram High, said he's up to 6-10.

POWER BROKER: In Sports Illustrated's recent ranking of the 101 most influential minorities in athletics, Virginia's Craig Littlepage came in at No. 46. Littlepage, the Cavaliers' athletic director since August 2001, was ranked two spots behind Magic Johnson, one ahead of Stu Jackson, the NBA's senior vice president of basketball operations, and two ahead of Allen Iverson.

SI devoted a half-page to Littlepage, running a feature photograph next to a short profile of him.

TOP OF THEIR CLASS: At U.Va.'s recent awards banquet, Lauren Aumiller (women's lacrosse), Kiamesha Otey (women's track and field) and Alecko Eskandarian (men's soccer) took top honors. Aumiller and Otey shared the IMP Award as Virginia's top female athletes, and Eskandarian received the WINA award as the top male athlete.

Otey, a senior, is a graduate of New Kent High School.

GOOD CAUSE: The third annual Mac McDonald Invitational, a golf tournament that benefits the U.Va. Children's Medical Center, raised more than $57,000, surpassing its goal of $50,000.

McDonald is the Cavaliers' play-by-play man. Among those who turned out for his tournament were Howie Long, ESPN's Jay Bilas, Redskins radio broadcaster Frank Herzog, former Virginia Tech basketball coach Ricky Stokes and former U.Va. football players Billy Baber and Patrick Kerney.

MULTI-TALENTED: Among the D.C. area's high school track-and-field standouts, U.Va. football recruit Deyon Williams ranks No. 1 in three events: the 110-meter hurdles, the long jump and the high jump. Williams, a 6-3, 185-pound senior at Suitland High in Upper Marlboro, Md., is projected to play wide receiver at Virginia. He has not yet met NCAA eligibility requirements.

NEW ROLE: In 2002, no U.Va. lacrosse player benefited more from Conor Gill's extraordinary passing than freshman attackman Joe Yevoli. He led the ACC with 40 goals, many set up by Gill, who totaled 42 assists.

A year later, with Gill gone, Yevoli no longer is even his team's top goal-scorer. Four Cavaliers are ahead of Yevoli, who has 19 goals. But he leads Virginia in assists with 19, nine more than he had last season.

"I think you're seeing from Joe this year what he's capable of," U.Va. coach Dom Starsia said, "but you're also seeing a guy who's being covered by a better defenseman and who has to bear a greater burden on offense . . . Joe's got a lot more on his plate this year than he did last year."

Second-seeded Virginia (11-2) meets Mount St. Mary's (10-7) in the NCAA tournament's first round Saturday at Klockner Stadium. Game time is 1 p.m.

HEADED WEST: Derrick Byars, a rising sophomore at U.Va., has been invited to try out for the USA Basketball Men's Junior World Championship Team, May 30 to June 1 at Colorado Springs, Colo. Byars, a 6-7 swingman, started 16 games in 2002-03 and averaged 6.5 points and 2.9 rebounds. - Jeff White
 

 

ACC's Swofford: It's 3 or none

ACC commissioner John Swofford says the league will stay as it is or add three members, enabling it to hold a football title game.

By LARRY KEECH
LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE

   GREENSBORO, N.C. - ACC commissioner John Swofford expects the ACC to invite three new members or to stand pat with its current roster of nine.

    "I think we will continue to get stronger whether it's nine [members] or 12," Swofford said. "I think it would be one or the other."

    His comment dispelled the option of adding Miami as the lone new member, as was the case when Florida State became the ninth ACC member more than a decade ago. The addition of three schools would meet an NCAA requirement that would allow the ACC to have a football championship playoff game.

    Otherwise, Swofford's comments were characteristically restrained and noncommital during a brief interview following the ACC's commemoration of its 50th anniversary at Sedgefield Country Club.

    Swofford addressed the matter of potential expansion for the first time since comments by Big East and ACC athletics officials triggered a flurry of media speculation. Reports have focused on the ACC's possible annexation of Miami and three other Big East members ... Syracuse, Boston College and Virginia Tech.

    "There are discussions going on," Swofford said Thursday, confirming the current priority of the expansion issue. "Whether those discussions lead to change remains to be seen.

    "I guess some people feel that for the future, you need to be at 12 and have a football championship game. Others don't necessarily believe that."

    Swofford, who has been depicted as a pro-expansion political force in the ACC, downplayed the commissioner's influence on an issue with enough consequence to be subject to decisions by college presidents of current and prospective ACC members.

    "Anytime you're talking about prospective new members, it is a two-way street," Swofford said. "It has to be.

    "Ultimately, this is a decision of our nine presidents. There is a lot of wisdom among those people. I'm here to represent. Wherever we end up, we cannot end up in a bad place."

    Expansion figures to be a prime topic for discussion when the ACC holds its annual spring meeting Sunday through Wednesday at Amelia Island, Fla. Among those in attendance will be a full roster of conference officials and the league's athletics directors, senior women's administrators, faculty representatives, and football and basketball coaches.

 

 

Cracks emerge in plans for ACC
By TONY BARNHART
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer


ACC officials took a break from expansion talk Thursday to celebrate the league's 50th anniversary with a ceremony and a round of golf at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C.

But those who understand the delicate nature of conference expansion say the Atlantic Coast Conference had best not tarry long if it wants to add Miami and perhaps two other members of the Big East.

"Once you have the consensus to start down that road, you had better do it quickly," said former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer. "If the process goes on too long, you run the risk of losing your momentum."

Kramer knows this process. In late May 1991 he got permission from the SEC's presidents to consider expanding the league from its 10 teams. By August Kramer had locked up Arkansas, and a short time later South Carolina agreed to join. Had the process gone on longer, Kramer is not sure he could have held the coalition of schools together.

"All of our presidents and members were behind expansion, but things change over time," Kramer said. "Other forces sometimes go to work."

The ACC has six of the seven votes it needs to extend an invitation to Miami to become its 10th member. If the ACC can get the seventh vote and if Miami accepts, the ACC is expected to invite Boston College and Syracuse to join as well.

But some tiny cracks in the ACC expansion effort are beginning to show, those familiar with the process say, and those cracks could scuttle expansion if the process doesn't conclude quickly.

For example:

There are rumblings out of Virginia that the state Legislature, which includes a number of Virginia Tech graduates, might pressure Virginia not to vote for an ACC expansion that does not include Virginia Tech. Some ACC schools, including Georgia Tech, want to add Virginia Tech, but the school does not have the necessary seven votes.

Miami president Donna Shalala reportedly has not made up her mind if the school would accept the ACC's offer. She is concerned that students from the Northeast, where Miami gets a significant percentage of its student body, might be less inclined to enroll if it no longer was affiliated with the Big East.

Maryland, which was considered squarely in the "yes" column for expansion, has begun to have second thoughts, those close to the process say. Wake Forest, another yes vote, also might be waffling.

There are whispers throughout the ACC that if it expands, the worth of its next football television package might not increase as much as projected. The ACC's current television deals, which are worth about $24 million, end after the 2005 season.

ACC commissioner John Swofford has let it be known that no vote will be taken on the issue at the league's annual spring meetings, which begin Sunday in Amelia Island, Fla. The ACC's presidents, who will make the decision, will not attend those meetings.

Reports out of Miami say the process could take another 30 to 60 days. That, say those who know the process, could be pushing the envelope for the ACC.