The ACC announced the pairings for the Big Ten/ACC Challenge Wednesday and, for the first time since 2009, Georgia Tech will not be a part of it.
With 15 ACC teams and 14 in the Big Ten, one team had to sit out, and it fell upon the Yellow Jackets to do the honors.
The reason is fairly simple. The challenge does not have set rules about which ACC team sits out of the event. The league works in conjunction with ESPN to create a mutually agreeable lineup. In other words, Duke will always be in the challenge. (Florida State, North Carolina and Virginia have also played in every challenge on the ACC side.) But in general, teams that make the NCAA and NIT tournaments the previous season are in.
For the 2015 event, that left Clemson, Florida State, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and Tech. Florida State may have been a team that was "mutually agreed" should stay in the field. The other four schools had sat out of the challenge more recently than Tech had (Wake in 2012, Clemson and Virginia Tech in 2013 and Boston College in 2014). Hence, the league determined that the fair result would be for the Jackets to not participate.
Tech is in the midst of its scheduling for the non-conference portion of its 2015-16 schedule. Aside from the vacancy left by the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, Tech also has to find opponents to replace Vanderbilt, Charlotte and Dayton, all of which ended two-game home-and-home series with the Jackets this past season.
The 2015 Big Ten/ACC Challenge
Monday, Nov. 30
Clemson at Minnesota
Wake Forest at Rutgers
Tuesday, Dec. 1
Maryland at North Carolina
Virginia at Ohio State
Michigan at N.C. State
Purdue at Pittsburgh
Northwestern at Virginia Tech
Miami at Nebraska
Wednesday, Dec. 2
Indiana at Duke
Louisville at Michigan State
Notre Dame at Illinois
Wisconsin at Syracuse
Florida State at Iowa
Penn State at Boston College
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