ACC/Big Ten Challenges ends, but will be replaced with ACC/SEC Challenge in 2023
The ACC/Big Ten Challenge will come to a close after this season and will be replaced with the ACC/SEC Challenge in 2023, it was announced on Monday.
This new challenge will take place for men’s and women’s basketball in the ACC. For the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, the last edition will take place this week.
Here’s the ACC’s announcement:
The ACC, @SEC and @ESPN today announced the formation of the ACC/SEC Challenge for men’s and women’s basketball, which will begin as part of the 2023-24 season.
📰🏀: https://t.co/AiC5eBeLfO pic.twitter.com/AJqaSfepZ9
— ACC Men's Basketball (@accmbb) November 28, 2022
For the men’s basketball challenge, there will be 14 challenge games over the next 3 days that will close out the relationship between the 2 conferences.
The year’s ACC/Big Ten Challenge will run from Monday through Wednesday this week. Some key matchups from the final challenge include Syracuse-Illinois, Wake Forest-Wisconsin, Virginia-Michigan, Duke-Ohio State, and North Carolina-Indiana.
After more than 20 years of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, the ACC and SEC announced the new basketball partnership that will start up during the 2023-2024 season. The ACC and SEC will be working in conjunction with ESPN to broadcast the challenge.
For the 1st 2 seasons of the challenge, there will be a total of 28 games between men’s and women’s basketball. The total number of games will increase to 30 challenge games for men’s and women’s basketball in the 2025-2026 season.
“The future ACC/SEC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Challenges will be outstanding events for our student-athletes, member institutions and fans,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said in a release. “The SEC, led by Greg Sankey, and our partners at ESPN have been terrific, and there’s great excitement for the first annual ACC/SEC Challenge next season. As part of this announcement, we’d like to acknowledge the Big Ten for its partnership on the ACC/B1G Challenge that spanned more than 20 years.”
Minnesota-Virginia Tech will kick off the 2022 ACC/Big Ten Challenge on Monday night at 7 p.m. ET.