On Thursday, the NCAA added flexibility to how they seeded teams within the same conference. Prior to this year, conference teams couldn’t meet until the regional final — unless a conference had nine teams in the field. For those conferences, the only rule stated the top three teams had to be in different regionals.
Now conference teams that have faced off just once during the season (this includes the league tournament) can meet as early as the round of 32 (they want me to call this the third-round, but I continue to refuse). Teams that have played twice will not have to see each other again until the Sweet 16, while teams that faced off three times will not face off until the Elite 8.
This will have a pretty big impact on a conference like the ACC, which now features 15 teams.
The conference will be playing a 18-game schedule. They’ll take on four teams twice, which means there will be 10 teams they will face just once (and barring those teams playing in the ACC Tournament) and then could potentially see them again in the round of 32.