For the longest that I can remember, the whole, entire NCAA has followed the Big Ten model of scheduling for men's basketball (all non-conference play to the start the season and then nothing but conference play to end it), and for some conferences and teams, that may work just fine. But in the SEC as well as the ACC, it isn't working. What I propose is that the SEC and the ACC allow teams to play non-conference games whenever they want, so long as they give up earlier dates for conference games.

For example, UGa, GT, UK, and UL would all play a conference game early in the year, and then on rivalry weekend, they could play each other (UGA-GT, UK-UL). Those teams will still want to end their season with a conference game will be allowed to do so also. Basically, the basketball schedule would resemble the football schedule more. (Rivals played later rather than earlier). UGA-GT is huge in basketball, and while UGa-GT is slowly heating up some in football, it is already there in basketball. Why not just go ahead and make it official?

Outside the schools whose fans spend football season discussing basketball lineups and Midnight Madness, most of the country doesn't pay any attention to college basketball until after the bowls. I think most of us remember that a game featuring a highly ranked Indiana vs highly ranked Butler drew fewer viewers than the Las Vegas Bowl.

Pushing back the start of the season is the best solution though not one CBS would like because Masters coverage.

This is an idea that is as DOA as a Presidential budget presented to congress (which every POTUS knows, so they put every fantasy item they want to sell and the wish list of every special interest they want to woo for their reelection or their party's midterm prospects).

January to early March are when the conferences want their controlled games on their networks. BTN, SECN, P12N, FS1 (Big East) and soon ACCN all have their controlled content. This is also when tickets to home games do best. Why much up free opponents who happen to be conference rivals for some meaningless OOC game?

As for not working, what do you mean? The SEC had 8 and the ACC had 9 teams in the Tournament. The ACC had a 1 and two 2 seeds, the SEC had a 3 and a 4 seed. That is 15 of the 36 at-large, and 5 of the top 16 seeds. That is way above average for the Major conferences as a whole. Just because Villanova won the title while Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina did not have dominant years, and Virginia peed on themselves very publicly, doesn't mean it's not working. You cannot control when one of you conference's schools is going to have a peak year. But the fact that without a superior program these two conferences did so well indicates that the system is working very well for these two conferences, almost optimal.

Now of the NCAA could be persuaded to push March Madness a month later, as say April Awesomeness, then sure you could have Basketball dominate the entire Spring Semester (not just the Winter Quarter) just like Football dominates the Fall Semester, then yes, it might have more revenue and eyeball potential. The season would basically start around Christmas instead of Thanksgiving, and conference play would begin in February. It's probably doable, and it would be interesting to see if it would sell better to the public.

But I'm not sure. People are sort of used to seeing games that matter in January, and March Madness is an institution.I am not sure I'd be near as willing to see games if conference play started in February, and all January had was a couple of D-II and various low end warmup games (since schools play their real opponents in challenges and neutral site tournaments in exotic locations). So it might hurt ticket sales, as February may be too far removed from Bowl Season. But I do think it's an idea worth thinking about and investigating.

A big issue for college hoops is that the conferences want to play their conference games when school is in session and not over winter break

No conference is going to follow the Big Ten model used last year. Their conference games started way too early while marquee OOC games were still taking place. I’m glad their commish knows what a blunder it was.

(05-21-2018 01:29 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Outside the schools whose fans spend football season discussing basketball lineups and Midnight Madness, most of the country doesn't pay any attention to college basketball until after the bowls. I think most of us remember that a game featuring a highly ranked Indiana vs highly ranked Butler drew fewer viewers than the Las Vegas Bowl.

20 years ago when people's primary source for news was the newspaper the sports section covered all the big ranked tilts. If people didn't watch it they at least knew who was making waves in men's basketball.

There were always big basketball games in December that drew attention. High school basketball season begins after high school football season which then means basketball season was in full tilt after Thanksgiving.

Its a switch in media coverage that has accelerated college basketball's decline.

(05-21-2018 05:36 AM)esayem Wrote:  No conference is going to follow the Big Ten model used last year. Their conference games started way too early while marquee OOC games were still taking place. I’m glad their commish knows what a blunder it was.

When the ACC and Big Ten go to 20 game schedules, their options will be to either play 2x per week every week after Christmas without a bye for any teams or schedule two early December games for everyone. I'm sure it will be the latter.

(05-21-2018 07:16 AM)Go College Sports Wrote:  

(05-21-2018 05:36 AM)esayem Wrote:  No conference is going to follow the Big Ten model used last year. Their conference games started way too early while marquee OOC games were still taking place. I’m glad their commish knows what a blunder it was.

When the ACC and Big Ten go to 20 game schedules, their options will be to either play 2x per week every week after Christmas without a bye for any teams or schedule two early December games for everyone. I'm sure it will be the latter.

That works with non-traditional match-ups. BC vs UNC, for example.

(05-21-2018 05:36 AM)esayem Wrote:  No conference is going to follow the Big Ten model used last year. Their conference games started way too early while marquee OOC games were still taking place. I’m glad their commish knows what a blunder it was.

The early conference games weren’t seen as a mistake. The compressed conference schedule and playing the conference tournament so that it could be at Madison Square Garden, though, was definitely seen as a mistake and Jim Delaney admitted it.

The Big Ten is going to 20 conference games next year, so the plan is to have 2 early December conference games for each team again. The difference is that the January-forward conference schedule will go back to looking like how it has been for the past several years because those early December games are purely additive. I’m fairly certain other conferences will follow suit if/when they expand the number of their conference games.

It might be cool to have both football and basketball teams to play the same weekend in mid-late November. Have the hoops teams play Friday night prior to the Football game. I don't see it as a large scale event affecting too many schools th due to TV slots and competing early season tournaments.

(05-21-2018 08:15 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  It might be cool to have both football and basketball teams to play the same weekend in mid-late November. Have the hoops teams play Friday night prior to the Football game. I don't see it as a large scale event affecting too many schools th due to TV slots and competing early season tournaments.

The Big Ten seems to be planning their weekend of early conference games around the Big Ten Championship Game. I think the idea is that there’s a major conference event for everyone in the league that weekend even if your team isn’t participating in the football game.

Like I said, non-traditional match-ups would be more interesting: Duke vs Syracuse, Louisville vs. anybody, UNC vs. Pitt. I can’t imagine a rivalry game in December.

Didn’t the Big Ten play conference games then play non-conference games before returning to conference games? It was very disjointed from what I remember.

No power conference is going to follow their lead in playing a conference tournament a week early. I think everyone can agree on that.