A Modest Suggestion-ACC Early Season Tourney

[hudlow]

I'm all for more ball.

[lotusland]

I like the idea. The tournament championship won't mean as much as winning at the end of the year but it would be an awesome start to the season. Count me in.

[Farlan]

As someone who fondly remembers the Big Four Tournament (but not old enough to remember the Dixie Classic) I am all in on this idea!

[Cameron]

Reviving the old Big Four Tournament with the four best teams in North Carolina would be wonderful. But how do you play a tournament between Duke, North Carolina and Davidson?

[ChillinDuke]

Others around here have voiced this concept previously. I'm all for it - in some form.

There's probably a balance needed here between watering down conference play (e.g. - having potentially 4 Duke-UNC games per year) and promoting the brand.

If you can strike some sort of compelling concept, I think it would really work. The first thing that popped into my mind was maybe a "Kickoff Tournament" where the ACC plays each other right out of the gate after the exhibition games. You could play the tournaments as bookends to the year and create storylines - "Duke ran through the kickoff tournament and now everyone has caught up for the ACCT." [Insert Duke peaking early comment here]

Or perhaps if a full-on kickoff tournament is too many ACC games (4? 5?), a "Challenge" event for the ACC similar to ACC/B1G with just one game per school but that game is coordinated with a rematch later in the conference season.

Just throwing out thoughts. But I like the initial idea for multiple reasons.

- Chillin

[Jderf]

As far as ideas-that-will-never-happen go, this is one of the cooler ones that I've heard. Shame really, would be a really nice way to set the tone for the regular season.

[brevity]

Start an Old ACC-New ACC Challenge in 2014.

Old ACC: Clemson, Duke, NC State, UNC, Virginia, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami
New ACC: Virginia Tech, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Louisville, FGCU (honorary new member)

Instead of a single game, have each team play the others and have the games count toward the conference record. Strike all that -- just do a 28-game round robin conference season. 30 games once we finally invite FGCU.

[A-Tex Devil]

1. I was initially disappointed, then somewhat pleasantly surprised, that the modest suggestion wasn't "A Modest Proposal."

2. When DBR speaks of those not wanting to put that tournament together as "cowards," I wonder if they'd stand by that if K or Kevin White didn't think it was a good idea. Just wondering.

I think it's a great idea.

[luburch]

Why not have some form of champions league or tournament? Top two teams from power conferences the year before. They could start with look play to determine seeding, and then have a tournament. Obviously a major constraint would be time and number of games. But I think something along these lines would be fun.

[throatybeard]

1. I was initially disappointed, then somewhat pleasantly surprised, that the modest suggestion wasn't "A Modest Proposal."

2. When DBR speaks of those not wanting to put that tournament together as "cowards," I wonder if they'd stand by that if K or Kevin White didn't think it was a good idea. Just wondering.

I think it's a great idea.

1. Well, at least DBR didn't suggest eating Syracuse babies.

2. You're right. "Coward" is a really serious charge, not borne out by the evidence.

3. (Because it's my list). College basketball is already grossly over-exposed. The last thing it needs is more conference games in November or December.

[BigWayne]

Teams like Duke would have little to gain from a tourney like this and likely won't happen.

All non-con games that Duke schedules have a purpose such as the following.

1) Winnable games at home. - make money and get experience early in the season.
2) Early season tourneys - trips to nice places, extra games above the std. reg season limit, challenging opponents on neutral courts
3) Neutral court games in large cities - recruiting exposure in major metro areas, national TV coverage, challenging opponents on neutral courts
4) Neutral court games in NC cities - recruiting exposure in NC, challenging opponents on neutral courts, playing in possible NCAAT venues.

A tourney as proposed in MSG would be a bit like #3 above, but consumes 2 to 4 games of your reg season quota.

The only way I could see something like this happening would be as games that are part of the 18 game conference schedule.
That being said, I doubt teams will be willing to give up conference home games to make it happen.
The best I could see happening is to have a 19 game conference schedule with the 19th game being a neutral court game at such an event.
It wouldn't be a tourney though, more like the ACC/B10 challenge, where the teams get matched up depending on strength for optimal TV.