Honchos and coaches from the ACC have been huddling at a ritzy Ritz-Carlton on Florida's Amelia Island this week because . . . well, because they can and because they need an inspirational backdrop to ponder how to stuff more wads of cash in their pockets.

This ongoing quest for legal tender (it takes gobs of the stuff to pay off fired coaches and support a dozen assistant ADs on the payroll) has prompted the ACC to leave no TV window unopened and to increase its membership to an even dozen.

Now it's flirting with expansion again.

Not with more schools.

With more games.

Specifically, the ACC has been floated a proposal to boost the number of conference games played in basketball from 16 to 18. This trial balloon -- first given air a year ago -- is a candidate to be harpooned if most coaches had their way.

TV, on the other hand, would sign on the dotted line in a heartbeat (especially if it could persuade the league to book four UNC-Duke basketball matchups per annum).

Then there's the Selection Sunday twist. Some folks -- Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg among them -- believe an 18-game format should be considered, not so much to enhance the TV package, but to bolster the league's chances of shoe-horning more teams into the NCAA tournament.

"We can't be so hardheaded," Greenberg said from Florida. "We're getting hurt, because we're probably the deepest league in the country. We've got to do a better job of communicating the better depth of our conference. There's no Northwestern in the ACC. . . . You've got to play well to win games in our conference."

Greenberg ("We need to collect more data") can't state for sure why adding two games would translate into more NCAA bids. He only knows -- by his estimate -- the ACC was shortchanged this year and in '06, when it was limited to four teams in Bracketville.

Thing is, the ACC's problems run more than an 18-game-lineup deep. With all due respect to Greenberg's Hokies, who were close, the four ACC teams that made the 2008 NCAA field were the only four that deserved to be there.

Plus, Greenberg's claim notwithstanding, the ACC is more top-heavy than bottom-heavy -- a condition reflected by the 25-3 record UNC and Duke piled up against the other 10 teams.

What ails the league more than perception is coaching. A quarter-century ago, the ACC had eight teams and a roster of sideline impresarios that went: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, Terry Holland, Bobby Cremins, Lefty Driesell, Bill Foster and Carl Tacy. Past Krzyzewski and Roy Williams, today's crop in an enlarged ACC is a cut below -- and it shows.

Consider the Top 25 drop-off. Over the past three years, only eight of a possible 36 ACC teams made the final AP rankings -- a 22-percent showing and the lowest in a three-year span for the league since the poll was enlarged from 20 to 25 teams in 1990.

Meanwhile, nothing about scheduling was formally resolved at the Ritz -- but that's coming. Current TV contracts expire in 2011.

"I would think TV would embrace it," Greenberg said. "It would give them more inventory. I'm sure that'll have to play in somewhere, because they give us lots of money and it is a business."

Believe this: Money will get it done. As for the NCAAs, that comes down to winning games, not just playing them.