Atlantic annexation

Just a week after the ACC's 50th birthday, the league is working through an identity crisis: to expand or not to expand? Duke basketball coach and conference power broker Mike Krzyzewski now says yes. The Duke coach's turnaround in support of a three-team expansion of the ACC makes the conference's theft of three Big East teams almost a certainty. Whether the addition of Miami, Syracuse, and another Big East school-most likely Boston College-will transform the basketball-centric league into a power football conference is less certain.

The ACC would pick up perennial football powerhouse Miami. Meanwhile, Syracuse, the defending national basketball champions, will bolster the ACC's reputation as a hardwood conference. The expansion seemed unlikely when both North Carolina and Duke opposed the move. Now, with Mr. Krzyzewski on board, the ACC seems poised to make the biggest conference power play since the Big Eight added Texas, Texas A&M, and others. "Where is the ACC going to be in 2006 if we have four or five other mega-conferences and we're not?" Georgia Tech athletic director Dave Braine told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.