OK, spring football is in the rear view mirror. A small handful of you will have much interest in the lacrosse meanderings that will fill up this blog in the next four weeks.

But that doesn't mean there won't be some more basketball talk. Far from it.

When the ACC athletic directors meet in a few weeks, it appears the topic of expanding the league basketball schedule to 18 games will be broached (per the Charlotte Observer). And that would be no surprise, even though it came up last year and found tepid support from the league's coaches.

(And as this nearly year-old story from Rob Daniels of the Greensboro News and Record indicates, chances are slim any schedule changes would be made until after 2010-11, when the league's television deal expires --- unless the TV contract changes as well).

That said, there will be 16 ACC games for the Terps, plus three games in Orlando in the Old Spice Classic, plus the ACC/Big Ten Challenge game against Michigan. So that's 20, leaving 10 more to schedule. (Maryland played 31 games in the 2007-08 regular season because its exempt event --- the CBE Classic --- had four games rather than three).

Of the remaining 10, the return visit from Charlotte figures to fill one spot. The annual frustration of the BB&T Classic at Verizon Center should take up another.

That leaves eight games, many in the early (read: pre-Gus Gilchrist) portion of the schedule. There will probably be a local game or two and a lot of visits from Directional Hyphenated Ampersand International State to Comcast Center.

Something tells me every effort will be made to avoid an obvious trap game --- like Ohio and Holy Cross figured to be the day the schedule came out last year (Holy Cross was ravaged by injuries, jet-lagged and was run out of the gym. Ohio, well, you know how that turned out).

A full schedule won't be out until August. But chances are, some more tidbits will seep out in the next few months.

Whether they're all that exciting remains to be seen.

--- Patrick Stevens