Brave new world of scheduling

[JasonEvans]

Great article from Matt Norlander of CBS on plans for a massive new scheduling concept: https://www.cbssports.com/college-ba...into-february/

Here's how the first-of-its-kind concept would work: For one week in February, a slew of leagues would pause their conference schedules and instead have all their members play two nonconference opponents. The model would have every team involved play one home game and one away game, with the majority of those games happening three days apart — many on Wednesday and Saturday — with the window commencing after Valentine's Day.

The matchups would be decided by an algorithm that would ensure the best teams play the best teams. The games wouldn't be determined until the end of January. Think of it like a mini-Selection Sunday within the regular season. You could even build a television show around it. How fun would that be?

Wow! Sounds amazing, right? But, here is the bad news...

the pitch has been sent to the 26 leagues outside of the six biggest conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC). The six biggest leagues are not involved for practical reasons: 20-game leagues schedules, rigid TV contracts, and a sense that they wouldn't embrace this outside-the-box concept, as it wouldn't stand to benefit many teams in those leagues the way that it would for all others.

Son of a...

[CameronBornAndBred]

Son of a...

$hocking! $hocking I $ay!

[bshrader]

Great article from Matt Norlander of CBS on plans for a massive new scheduling concept: https://www.cbssports.com/college-ba...into-february/



Wow! Sounds amazing, right? But, here is the bad news...



Son of a...

So, just on the surface, this almost would seem to serve as de facto bubble team vs bubble team play-in games? (As many of the bubble teams annually are non-power conference teams...

[-jk]

So close, and yet so far!

-jk

[Ian]

If this end up working though, the big 6 would join the party.

[uh_no]

If this end up working though, the big 6 would join the party.

undoubtedly.

[Daddylawman]

Better chance to try to get the ACC/Big Ten and SEC/Big12 Challenges moved. It works better for the big guys. Possibly add the PAC 12 and Big East to the mix. You could rotate opposing leagues if they buy in to this. I think TV ratings in the week post Super Bowl would be huge.

[CrazieDUMB]

Better chance to try to get the ACC/Big Ten and SEC/Big12 Challenges moved. It works better for the big guys. Possibly add the PAC 12 and Big East to the mix. You could rotate opposing leagues if they buy in to this. I think TV ratings in the week post Super Bowl would be huge.

Agreed - I think drawing in the casual fan CBB a few weeks before the tourney would really help the sport, and get the marginal viewer to care a little earlier than "oh shoot I need to fill out my office pool by noon"

[blazindw]

This is just like the Bubble Buster series of games they had with certain midmajors a while back. One scenario that this presents is that it could open the door for more potential P5 opponents for Duke in November and December, or maybe that "bye" weekend in late January or early February that we used to play against teams like St. John's or Georgetown back in the 2000s.

[MarkD83]

If this end up working though, the big 6 would join the party.

The way the big 6 can get added in is by including the "bubble teams" in the big 6.

After that the top teams in the big 6 can be added. The entire week would be a seeding week essentially.

[TexHawk]

If this end up working though, the big 6 would join the party.

Curious why you think so. When I look at the CFP negotiations, I see P5 commissioners that don't like change, disruption, or the risk of losses hurting big programs. Granted, the dynamic is different, you wouldn't need all voting yay unanimously, for example. But unless you can guarantee big $$$ over what they are currently pulling in, I'm having trouble seeing it.

And the moment a power school like Duke, UNC, KU, UK, etc loses in one of these and it cascades to a lost #1 seed, you'd see pressure to pull out. Those would drown out the room, even if other #1 seeds are "won" in a similar fashion.

[MarkD83]

Curious why you think so. When I look at the CFP negotiations, I see P5 commissioners that don't like change, disruption, or the risk of losses hurting big programs. Granted, the dynamic is different, you wouldn't need all voting yay unanimously, for example. But unless you can guarantee big $$$ over what they are currently pulling in, I'm having trouble seeing it.

And the moment a power school like Duke, UNC, KU, UK, etc loses in one of these and it cascades to a lost #1 seed, you'd see pressure to pull out. Those would drown out the room, even if other #1 seeds are "won" in a similar fashion.

I think the difference here is that in the CFP there are only P6 participants (the way it is set up now) and the top flight bowl games are also dominated by P6 teams.

For the NCAA tournament there are 32 automatic bids of which 26 are not in the P6. There are then 36 at large teams. The NCAA selection committee could see these games in February and decide that several non P6 teams are deserving of being in the tournament at the expense of some 6th or 7th place team in a P6 conference. If the 6th or 7th place P6 team wants to prove they deserve to get an at large bid then they need to participate in the games.

[JasonEvans]

I think the difference here is that in the CFP there are only P6 participants (the way it is set up now) and the top flight bowl games are also dominated by P6 teams.

For the NCAA tournament there are 32 automatic bids of which 26 are not in the P6. There are then 36 at large teams. The NCAA selection committee could see these games in February and decide that several non P6 teams are deserving of being in the tournament at the expense of some 6th or 7th place team in a P6 conference. If the 6th or 7th place P6 team wants to prove they deserve to get an at large bid then they need to participate in the games.

Minor point of clarification -- in football there is a P5 group of conferences that control the top of the sport (and one could argue that only 2 or 3 of those conferences really matter anyway). In basketball we have the P6 because the Big East schools have shown themselves to have just as many good teams and pull in similar ticket/ratings dollars as the Big Ten/Big 12/SEC/ACC/Pac 12. There is not a P6 in football.

[House P]

The six biggest leagues are not involved for practical reasons: 20-game leagues schedules, rigid TV contracts, and a sense that they wouldn't embrace this outside-the-box concept, as it wouldn't stand to benefit many teams in those leagues the way that it would for all others.

We often bemoan the lack of a "commissioner" for college basketball. One of the many drawbacks of this is that conferences are pretty much responsible scheduling in Jan/Feb. As a result, there is little room for marquee non-conference games because conferences have an incentive to play 20 game conference schedules.

One solution would be for the NCAA to allow teams to play two "exempt" tournaments each year - one in Nov/Dec and one in Feb. Thus, a team like Duke could either play a single conference game against someone like BC in Feb or play three non-conferences games as a part of an exempt tournament. This could put pressure on conferences to create room for their teams to participate in these mid-seasons tournaments.

I would personally go a step further and permanently establish a certain number of mid Feb exempt tournaments where the teams are not selected until late January/early Feb. If they wanted to, the NCAA could seed these tournaments based on NET rankings (while applying principals which prevent conference matchups in these exempt tournaments).

Not only would these tournaments improve the NCAA tournament selection process, they would also generate a lot more interest than the average mid-Feb college basketball weekend.