Quote:But the league declined to take a second recommendation from consultants, who urged Conference USA move its postseason tournament to campus sites.
“I don’t know why we didn’t do that,” Jones said. “We need to do it next season.”
Jones made a compelling case as to why the league should.
First, it would immediiately make the conference tournament a more more attractive TV product. C-USA's tournament is played on a neutral site, and that guarantees there will be few fans in the stands and that games will be played in an atmosphere that is virtually sterile.
“That doesn’t present the kind of image I believe the league wants to present to fans and recruits,” Jones said.
The only TV product that is actually a product is the championship game.
So, yes, play the championship game at the site of the higher seed of the two semi-final winners.
That resolves that.
Quote:Moreover, with top seeds hosting games on their home sites, the conference's best teams are more likely to avoid early upsets. Yes, that gives an advantage to the higher seeds. But shouldn't the regular-season mean something? if you've finished in the first division of the league standings, you've earned a chance to play at home.
If that's a valid concern, then just dispense with anything but a 4-team tournament, why don't you?
I don't think that's a valid concern, and in fact, the great thing about tournaments is that every school gets to show up and have a legit shot at post-season glory.
Ask any Marshall fan or a fan of any other school that has actually participated in a tournament where the tournament was well-attended... conference basketball tournaments have a unique quality that promotes conference rivalries and at the same time, fans' regard and allegiance for their school's conference.
If you can host the festivities at a legitimately central site, one that is within a day's drive of the schools participating, that is what can happen.
No, you can't have *every* conference school in CUSA within a day's drive of one location, but you can have every division school in CUSA within one day's drive of a central location to its division.
Quote:Jones proposes adopting the model used by the Patriot League and playing the tournament on home courts of the higher seeds. Take ten teams, have two play-in games, and then go right to the quarterfinals.
“You’d have to extend the postseason to two weeks,” he said. “But it would make for much better television, and it would protect the top seeds.
“If we end up playing someone on the road, in front of their crowd, that’s great. I’d rather play to a full house than a few hundred people on a neutral court.”.....
....Miller said playing the tournament on home courts might be a challenge logistically, with travel arrangements being made at the last minute.
“But what do you have to lose?” he said.
It's not a bad option, but it's just not the best option.
There is a third option that doesn't require extending the post-season to two weeks, and that doesn't predict that you'll be playing in front of a few hundred people on a neutral court, and that doesn't require travel arrangements on such a tight schedule:
- Division tournaments hosted in ATL and DFW concurrently on the weekend prior to the current tournament dates, and just as it is now, for both mens and womens teams
- Followed by a conference championship on the same Saturday that we've been having it, in the arena of the higher-seeded team.