Changing the College BBall Schedule - Bring on May Madness!

[HowardsWorld]

I don't mind expansion, but get rid of NIT if you do that.  Most will be against this idea....that's fine.

If you are going to expand it should be literally all mid majors that they add. I hate that schools that go 29-5 miss out because they lose there championship game yet a team thats 18-15 makes it from a big conference.

Stories like George Mason, Loyola etc are what make march madness great. I wonder how many more we could have had if they just let the small school in instead of a power 5 team who had 30 games to show they dont belong.

[Cheeks]

If you are going to expand it should be literally all mid majors that they add. I hate that schools that go 29-5 miss out because they lose there championship game yet a team thats 18-15 makes it from a big conference.

Stories like George Mason, Loyola etc are what make march madness great. I wonder how many more we could have had if they just let the small school in instead of a power 5 team who had 30 games to show they dont belong.

Fine with me, I have long argued this here going back 10 years.

[frozena pizza]

Except those meaningless bowl games will get better TV rating than this weekend's Duke/UNC game.

Except not really.  The first meeting of Duke / UVA had a 2.3 rating.  Well below the major bowl games but equal to the 12th highest bowl game (tied with Wiscy / Miami) and above 28 other bowls.  Not bad for an early January matchup.  Also shows that the argument that nobody cares about college hoops until March just isn't true.

[Heisenberg]

If you are going to expand it should be literally all mid majors that they add. I hate that schools that go 29-5 miss out because they lose there championship game yet a team thats 18-15 makes it from a big conference.

Stories like George Mason, Loyola etc are what make march madness great. I wonder how many more we could have had if they just let the small school in instead of a power 5 team who had 30 games to show they dont belong.

Adopt the NIT rule ... regular season conference winners also get a bid.

Or, how about going beyond 96 and taking a page from tennis and having "qualifiers?" To go to 128 teams.  96 teams are picked by the committee.  The other 32 are picked from the qualifying rounds.  Everyone with a better than .500 record  (which should be 60 to 80 teams) are sent to four sites (I.e., MSG, AllState, Staples, etc) to "play in" with the top eight coming out of each region to fill out the brackets.  These would be competitive "win or go home games" that would attract interest. (to do this, most likely the conference tournaments would have to be eliminated.)

The point is if college basketball is all about the tournament, which seems to be the argument here, then expand the tournament into the entire month of March.

[Heisenberg]

Except not really.  The first meeting of Duke / UVA had a 2.3 rating.  Well below the major bowl games but equal to the 12th highest bowl game (tied with Wiscy / Miami) and above 28 other bowls.  Not bad for an early January matchup.  Also shows that the argument that nobody cares about college hoops until March just isn't true.

So the absolute top regular season game has TV ratings are equal to a middle-level bowl game. Sort of makes my point about the relative popularity of college football versus college basketball.

To the point of those above that say they don't care about college football, they are outliers.  That is not how the rest of the world sees it.

It's a football world, basketball just lives in it.

[MUBigDance]

The superbowl and NFL has the issue. I'm not interested except for the commercials and they're awful....so I don't care so much.
College football is also not as interesting to me. Did watch Clemson win but bowls are off my radar....I suppose if I lived in a college football town I might be more into it.

I think the NFL could be in trouble. its not a superior product anymore to me....among sports, NBA is ascendant in my opinion.

as for starting in January. There is some appeal...but not good for BBall only schools like MU.

[MU82]

I vote "yes" to unicorns playing in NCAA basketball games.

[Cheeks]

The superbowl and NFL has the issue. I'm not interested except for the commercials and they're awful....so I don't care so much.
College football is also not as interesting to me. Did watch Clemson win but bowls are off my radar....I suppose if I lived in a college football town I might be more into it.

I think the NFL could be in trouble. its not a superior product anymore to me....among sports, NBA is ascendant in my opinion.

as for starting in January. There is some appeal...but not good for BBall only schools like MU.

NBA is ascendant, but still trails NFL 14x....the gap is so massive.

The NFL literally owns a day of the week for 5 months of the year.  Think about that.

[frozena pizza]

So the absolute top regular season game has TV ratings are equal to a middle-level bowl game. Sort of makes my point about the relative popularity of college football versus college basketball.

To the point of those above that say they don't care about college football, they are outliers.  That is not how the rest of the world sees it.

It's a football world, basketball just lives in it.

Okay, but you weren't talking about the relative popularity of college football versus college basketball and I'm sure we would agree on that.  Lower tier bowl games do not get better ratings than a top regular season college basketball game.  In fact, sweet sixteen games compare pretty favorably to even the top tier (non-championship) bowl games.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

So the absolute top regular season game has TV ratings are equal to a middle-level bowl game. Sort of makes my point about the relative popularity of college football versus college basketball.

To the point of those above that say they don't care about college football, they are outliers.  That is not how the rest of the world sees it.

It's a football world, basketball just lives in it.

No one is arguing any of this. College football and NFL dominate college basketball when they overlap.

The argument is that the college basketball postseason is where the sport makes it money and right now it is the undisputed king of March with virtually zero competition.

[frozena pizza]

One thing college basketball has going for it that is a driving force in its popularity is the bracket.  It's like what fantasy football has done for the NFL.  People who otherwise couldn't care less end up getting obsessed because they took 5 minutes to fill out a bracket and put $10 into their office pool.  There is really nothing else like it in sports.

[Cheeks]

Except those meaningless bowl games will get better TV rating than this weekend's Duke/UNC game.

This is not accurate depending on what you are defining as meaningless Bowl game.

[MU82]

No one is arguing any of this. College football and NFL dominate college basketball when they overlap.

The argument is that the college basketball postseason is where the sport makes it money and right now it is the undisputed king of March with virtually zero competition.

Yessir. It doesn't get much better than March Madness leading to the Final Four in the first weekend of April and then the Masters the following weekend. Plus, some MLB for those who can't get enough sports.

As an aside, here's the latest: Vegas oddsmakers now say it's more likely that unicorns replace NCAA athletes than the college basketball season starting in January.

[MUCam]

I personally think that replacing humans with unicorns would not nearly be as exciting as it seems at first glance. Once the novelty of real live unicorns in short shorts wore off, it would become boring.

Humans are best suited for college basketball. Unicorns should stick to fighting with elephants and wounding them in the belly.

[muwarrior69]

Actually Major League baseball has it right. Their season begins when college basketball ends and ends when college basketball begins. Now if the NFL could start their season in June along with college football and end the beginning of November I'm in. After all if it is so popular who cares what season it is played in and just think all those tail gate partys would be so much more fun in warm weather.

Edit: No way ESPN is giving up feast week!

[brewcity77]

I vote "yes" to unicorns playing in NCAA basketball games.

Of course, everyone loves watching Zion.

[muwarrior69]

Except those meaningless bowl games will get better TV rating than this weekend's Duke/UNC game.

True, but there a lot more basketball games on that together would probably equal the viewers of one bowl game. If you're an advertiser would you rather have a narrow audience from one football game or a wide audience from several basketball games?

[rocky_warrior]

I'm not sure a legit unicorn discussion belongs in the superbar.  Maybe merge with NM?

[MU82]

I'm not sure a legit unicorn discussion belongs in the superbar.  Maybe merge with NM?

Bigot! Scoop is no place for unicorniphobes!!!

[rocky_warrior]

[Heisenberg]

Yessir. It doesn't get much better than March Madness leading to the Final Four in the first weekend of April and then the Masters the following weekend. Plus, some MLB for those who can't get enough sports.

As an aside, here's the latest: Vegas oddsmakers now say it's more likely that unicorns replace NCAA athletes than the college basketball season starting in January.

So the regular season is not that important.  It's all about the tourney.

So increase it to 96 or 128 games and take a month.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

So the regular season is not that important.  It's all about the tourney.

Pretty much.

So increase it to 96 or 128 games and take a month.

Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?

Maybe increasing to 96 or 128 would be worth it, I honestly don't know, but I don't think its as simple as "the more teams you add the more money the tournament will make"

[Heisenberg]

Pretty much.

Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?

Maybe increasing to 96 or 128 would be worth it, I honestly don't know, but I don't think its as simple as "the more teams you add the more money the tournament will make"

You're adding an extra week which is why you would do it.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

You're adding an extra week which is why you would do it.

I'll ask again. Are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns?

[Cheeks]

So the regular season is not that important.  It's all about the tourney.

So increase it to 96 or 128 games and take a month.

Reg season very important.  Part of the process.  Games matter.  March is about the tournament, separate from regular season....both important.