On Thursday afternoon, the ACC announced that it is going to 18 conference games in men's and women's basketball starting in 2012-13:
"Our member institutions have been talking about this increase for awhile and knowing our league will be expanding to 14 in the future, we've decided to move to an 18-game conference schedule next year, regardless of our membership number," said ACC Commissioner John Swofford. "The additional conference games create a more equitable schedule and we've received significant feedback from our fans for more conference games."
If there are still 12 teams in the league next year, that would mean each school would play seven teams twice, and I'm all for anything that increases the number of home-and-homes in conference play, even if it is short lived. The move at least guarantees that each school will continue to have five home-and-homes even when the league officially expands to 14 teams.