http://www.myajc.com/news/sports/how-imp...m-referral

The early season gets largely overshadowed by NFL and college football. I say don't start the season until January and have the conference tourneys in May. Call it May Madness, or Mayhem.

That is it! We need MORE December tournaments. Does this guy even watch college BB?

(01-06-2016 08:48 AM)TopperCard Wrote:  The early season gets largely overshadowed by NFL and college football. I say don't start the season until January and have the conference tourneys in May. Call it May Madness, or Mayhem.

Sure, you could start the season in January, but I don't think that would address MBB fundamental problem; a lack of urgency. The conferences traded an expanded March Madness and Conference Tournament for dwindling regular season relevance. And based on the payouts I think they are fine with the tradeoff.

(01-06-2016 09:04 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(01-06-2016 08:48 AM)TopperCard Wrote:  The early season gets largely overshadowed by NFL and college football. I say don't start the season until January and have the conference tourneys in May. Call it May Madness, or Mayhem.

Sure, you could start the season in January, but I don't think that would address MBB fundamental problem; a lack of urgency. The conferences traded an expanded March Madness and Conference Tournament for dwindling regular season relevance. And based on the payouts I think they are fine with the tradeoff.

They ought to start in December. Lose some of those early games vs. SENE directional U. (unless you are SENW directional U.). The season was 26 games not that long ago. Kentucky plays 31 before the SEC tournament + 2 exhibition games. They squeezed 9 of those 33 into November and only play 5 in December.

11/2 Ottawa exhibition
11/6 Kentucky St. exhibition
11/13 Albany
11/14 New Jersey Tech
11/17 Duke
11/20 Wright St.
11/24 Boston U.
11/27 USF
11/30 Illinois St.

You could easily get rid of 3 of those games and move the rest into December and January.

(01-06-2016 09:30 AM)bullet Wrote:  They ought to start in December. Lose some of those early games vs. SENE directional U. (unless you are SENW directional U.). The season was 26 games not that long ago. Kentucky plays 31 before the SEC tournament + 2 exhibition games. They squeezed 9 of those 33 into November and only play 5 in December.

11/2 Ottawa exhibition
11/6 Kentucky St. exhibition
11/13 Albany
11/14 New Jersey Tech
11/17 Duke
11/20 Wright St.
11/24 Boston U.
11/27 USF
11/30 Illinois St.

You could easily get rid of 3 of those games and move the rest into December and January.

I don't see how any of your suggested moves would increase viewership. The games before conference play simply don't matter that much. Even the intra-conference style games have seen a decrease in ratings. And since the conference tourneys are so large, all you need is a .500 record to get the invite. There are very few surprises at the major conference level regarding who qualifies for March Madness.

May would be pushing things but there's no reason that the Tournament can't slide deeper into April. April Anxiety? Nobody is watching much basketball in November.

Institute a rule on the number of mid-majors a school can play each year. Designate certain conferences as major conferences and the rest are mid-majors. AAC, A10, ACC, BE, B1G, XII, MVC, MWC, PAC, SEC, WCC for example.

(01-06-2016 10:05 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  May would be pushing things but there's no reason that the Tournament can't slide deeper into April. April Anxiety? Nobody is watching much basketball in November.

there is. it's called the NBA/NHL playoffs. Oh, and the Masters.

(01-06-2016 10:07 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(01-06-2016 10:05 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  May would be pushing things but there's no reason that the Tournament can't slide deeper into April. April Anxiety? Nobody is watching much basketball in November.

there is. it's called the NBA/NHL playoffs. Oh, and the Masters.

Yes, correct. College basketball *owns* March. In contrast, April through June is the busiest time of the sports calendar outside of the fall (when football, baseball, basketball and hockey are all playing at the same time), so it would become just one of many events. (Just off the top of my head, The Masters, NBA and NHL playoffs, start of MLB season, NFL Draft, US Open, French Open tennis, US Open golf and Triple Crown races all fall within that window.) It's simply a trade-off of what's more important to college basketball - a more valuable beginning to the season or a more valuable end to the season? The casual viewing public clearly has only cared about the end of the season for years and that's where 90% of the basketball TV revenue is today, I think that the powers that be can't really mess with it. Of course, these are the same people that thought that it would be a wise decision to put the college football playoff semifinals on New Year's Eve, so who knows?

You want to improve college basketball? Keep players from entering the NBA after one season. People would prefer to watch the NBA if they were going to spend their time watching basketball during football season.

(01-06-2016 11:04 AM)Nebraskafan Wrote:  You want to improve college basketball? Keep players from entering the NBA after one season. People would prefer to watch the NBA if they were going to spend their time watching basketball during football season.

I think that would be a good thing for both college basketball and the NBA if players couldn't be drafted until, say, 2 years after graduating high school, but that doesn't address the issue here of early season games not meaning much. That problem would occur even if the very best NBA prospects stayed in college for 4 years.

With the way that college basketball is set up, the fact of the matter is that early season games really wouldn't mean that much whether they're played in November or January, so there isn't a compelling reason to change the March Madness schedule in order to start the regular season later. All that does is shift the competition for sports viewers from the front-end (against football) to the back-end (against The Masters, NBA/NHL playoffs, MLB, etc.). Heck, even if you start the college basketball season later, you still run into same competition with the college bowls and NFL playoffs in the same way as today. For better or worse, protecting the back-end is MUCH more important for college basketball from a financial and viewership standpoint.

(01-06-2016 09:47 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(01-06-2016 09:30 AM)bullet Wrote:  They ought to start in December. Lose some of those early games vs. SENE directional U. (unless you are SENW directional U.). The season was 26 games not that long ago. Kentucky plays 31 before the SEC tournament + 2 exhibition games. They squeezed 9 of those 33 into November and only play 5 in December.

11/2 Ottawa exhibition
11/6 Kentucky St. exhibition
11/13 Albany
11/14 New Jersey Tech
11/17 Duke
11/20 Wright St.
11/24 Boston U.
11/27 USF
11/30 Illinois St.

You could easily get rid of 3 of those games and move the rest into December and January.

I don't see how any of your suggested moves would increase viewership. The games before conference play simply don't matter that much. Even the intra-conference style games have seen a decrease in ratings. And since the conference tourneys are so large, all you need is a .500 record to get the invite. There are very few surprises at the major conference level regarding who qualifies for March Madness.

Lower inventory. Get rid of unwatched games in November. Don't wear the players out before you even get to conference play, so less chance of losing star players.

Change March Madness. Don't let everyone and their grandma into a single-game elimination tournament where a 10-loss team can get hot and win the whole thing (cough, cough, UConn...)

Give automatic bids for regular season champs, not conference tourney champs. Give the Power 5 champs automatic bids and have the next 44 (about 25 smaller conference champs plus 19 at-large teams) play a two-round, single-elimination tourney. Weekend one.

Then, the 11 winners are seeded with the Power 5 champ...and you have your Sweet 16.

It values the regular season by emphasizing regular season performance more.

(01-06-2016 12:21 PM)allthatyoucantleavebehind Wrote:  Change March Madness. Don't let everyone and their grandma into a single-game elimination tournament where a 10-loss team can get hot and win the whole thing (cough, cough, UConn...)

Give automatic bids for regular season champs, not conference tourney champs. Give the Power 5 champs automatic bids and have the next 44 (about 25 smaller conference champs plus 19 at-large teams) play a two-round, single-elimination tourney. Weekend one.

Then, the 11 winners are seeded with the Power 5 champ...and you have your Sweet 16.

It values the regular season by emphasizing regular season performance more.

2 things....

1st off- what you are saying will NEVER happen... way too much $$$ involved for it to change.

2nd off- 2 years ago... UConn would have still been invited. They were a 7 seed that year. Means they were 25-28.

Remember that the gimmee early season games against Prairie View or Maryland Baltimore County are revenue generators for schools. They also provide valuable coaching/PT for freshmen getting used to the offense, etc.

I think they could compress the schedule - start play Nov 15th.

Also just push start of conf season to begin to January - maybe make a little more space approaching March for flexibility of scheduling games.

Just an FYI, without an NCAA rule change, the stated idea could not happen. Teams from the same conference are not permitted to play in the same exempt events/tournaments.

Also I am not sure how much demand there would be for these neutral site games in November. They have a hard enough time getting big turnouts for the events in MSG and the Champions Classic events, that feature the biggest marquee names. Much harder to do with teams who may be very good, but don't have those big fanbases. Hard to get a lot of neutral fans into basketball at the end of football season.

(01-06-2016 12:47 PM)stever20 Wrote:  

(01-06-2016 12:21 PM)allthatyoucantleavebehind Wrote:  Change March Madness. Don't let everyone and their grandma into a single-game elimination tournament where a 10-loss team can get hot and win the whole thing (cough, cough, UConn...)

Give automatic bids for regular season champs, not conference tourney champs. Give the Power 5 champs automatic bids and have the next 44 (about 25 smaller conference champs plus 19 at-large teams) play a two-round, single-elimination tourney. Weekend one.

Then, the 11 winners are seeded with the Power 5 champ...and you have your Sweet 16.

It values the regular season by emphasizing regular season performance more.

2 things....

1st off- what you are saying will NEVER happen... way too much $$$ involved for it to change.

2nd off- 2 years ago... UConn would have still been invited. They were a 7 seed that year. Means they were 25-28.

If the NCAA/Power 5 go through thorough restructuring...maybe they re-invent the whole thing.

A "fairer" championship would limit the entrants and make the games a 3-game series rather than a single elimination.

Most folks don't see the tournament as being broken at all whatsoever. 1st weekend is one of the best weekends of the entire sports year.

(01-06-2016 03:09 PM)allthatyoucantleavebehind Wrote:  A "fairer" championship would limit the entrants and make the games a 3-game series rather than a single elimination.

So would a three game series for the Super Bowl. But that's not happening either.

Besides, I fail to see how it would be more "fair" to have a single elimination tournament, that all of a sudden changes its format for the last round. Pretty sure that is the definition of unfair.