Coach K says he will not schedule Maryland as a non-conference opponent

As the dust continues to settle on the conference realignment process, one of the last major changes will come this summer when Maryland departs the ACC for the Big Ten.

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said in an interview with The Washington Post that after the Blue Devils and Terrapins meet Feb. 15 at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the teams should not expect to see each other anytime soon.

Former conference rivals like Syracuse and Georgetown will be making an effort in a future to continue playing annual non-conference games, but the Duke head coach said that he would not schedule Maryland in the future.

So Coach K was then asked whether he could see a day when the teams would face each other again, even if only in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge.

“Well, that would be the only way it would be done, because we won’t schedule Maryland,” he answered. “And there’s nothing to that, just that it doesn’t work out for us to do that. That’s the only way it would happen, if they continue the Big 10-ACC.

“And by the way, these conferences, they keep adding teams,” he said as an aside. “Why don’t they put the right number [in their names]? I forget how many teams are in all these conferences, including our own sometimes, but I can just say it’s the ACC. I can get away with that. That was smart of our conference to do that. It’s a little bit crazy what’s going on all over.”

Krzyzewski did not hold back after the Terrapins upset Duke at the Comcast Center last February, taking some pointed jabs at Maryland's decision to leave the ACC. The Terrapins are the first of the conference's founding members to leave the ACC since South Carolina back in 1971.