I don't think there's a way to fix this.

The ACC is one of the best conferences in the country. If ND is going to advance to the quarters each year chances are they are going to play another ACC team.

The committee's hands are tied unless they expand the field.

There's a good chance we play another ACC team if we advance to the quarterfinals or beyond, unless the field is expanded. That could be upon us quicker than we anticipate, however. Currently, there are 9 conferences that have AQ bids to the tourney. I believe that if one additional AQ bid is added, the committee will add a second play-in game (as they did for the brief period when the ACC had an AQ bid). But if it's two more conferences with AQ bids, I think they expand the tournament field to 24 teams.

On the other side of the coin, it seems to me that we are playing less than the maximum number of regular-season games. As a point of comparison, Duke has played one more game than us (going into today's game) despite having been eliminated in the ACC tournament a round earlier than us. That translates into two additional regular-season games for Duke vice us.

I don't think that's a no-brainer on our part, however. Adding two regular-season games to our schedule means at least one more mid-week game. It also almost certainly means that our overall strength of schedule would drop. And it also means that we have two extra games entering the NCAA tournament, although I'm not sure how far the "fresh legs" argument goes. On the other hand, I think 10-6 would have looked much better to the Selection Committee than 8-6 did.