Basketball Scheduling Changes

[GeauxLouisiana]

Men's Basketball Non-Conference Scheduling Alliance
As a first step for improving non-conference scheduling, Sun Belt men's basketball teams will reserve two dates in the non-conference portion of their schedule to play against peer conference opponents. Each team will have one home opponent and one away opponent from this scheduling alliance. The scheduling alliance will fully begin with the 2019-20 season, though some games may be part of 2018-19 schedules.


http://sunbeltsports.org/news/2018/6.ball-plan.aspx

[SlickRick]

Interesting developments.

[Cajun Troll]

With this they have almost guaranteed that you will have no lower than a 4 seed winning the conference tourney.
Very Interesting developments.

[mahtoo]

Interesting developments.

I thought the same thinginteresting.

[cajun_lannister]

With this they have almost guaranteed that you will have no lower than a 4 seed winning the conference tourney.
Very Interesting developments.

Puts more importance on the regular season which is how it should be

[MetryCajun]

This looks to be a positive step for The SBC.

[Cajunsmike]

http://espn1420.com/sun-belt-makes-c.nament-format/


Jay and Scott talked about this on their shows today.

These changes are as a result of recommendations made by Mark Adams (ESPN color guy on mid major broadcasts and former mid major coach). Mr. Adams is a scheduling consultant hired by the SBC, CUSA, and the Horizon League. I suspect the scheduling alliance referred to in the article involves those three leagues. However, a part of me is skeptical CUSA would agree to this with the SBC due to the belief of many of those schools such a move would indicate they are going backwards. On April 10, Mr. Adams made a presentation to Rebounders Club members who were available. I was fortunate to be able to attend for part of the meeting. In that meeting he outlined this proposal. Obviously we could not make this public until things become official and it was unknown at that time what would be approved. We were told the league wanted to make the announcement and they did so today. There are a couple of interesting tidbits from that meeting that I recall. One, a Big 10 athletic administrator was caught saying the Big 6 leagues (Football P5 plus Big East) have a goal to eliminate all mid major at large bids in the near future. They virtually have done this now by scheduling almost all non conference games at home or on neutral courts. That will continue. The new selection criteria of how you did vs Top 50, Top 100 etc allows the big boys to be close to their goal now. 2nd he claimed that CUSA has agreed to the scheduling alliance with the SBC. As stated earlier, a part of me finds that hard to believe. Overall, this is a good move for the league and indicates a willingness to try something new. The pod system is definitely out of the box thinking. Playing the semi finals and finals at the Smoothie King Center is also a good move vs Lake Front Arena. Plenty of downtown hotels near SKC and you only stay one night. What do you guys think about these changes.

[ULvictory]

Puts more importance on the regular season which is how it should be

Nonsense. Playing NAIA and Division II schools is the way to go!

[cajun_lannister]

Nonsense. Playing NAIA and Division II schools is the way to go!

Sunbelt is trying to give teams a late season RPI boost however for big game it might be hard to win his 20 games now

[Cajunsmike]

Sunbelt is trying to give teams a late season RPI boost however for big game it might be hard to win his 20 games now

UL was one of the big proponents for this proposal. We pushed hard for it's approval.

[Cajunsmike]

The following is something I posted on the other thread I started on this topic. Turbine, feel free to combine the two threads.

Jay and Scott talked about this on their shows today.

These changes are as a result of recommendations made by Mark Adams (ESPN color guy on mid major broadcasts and former mid major coach). Mr. Adams is a scheduling consultant hired by the SBC, CUSA, and the Horizon League. I suspect the scheduling alliance referred to in the article involves those three leagues. However, a part of me is skeptical CUSA would agree to this with the SBC due to the belief of many of those schools such a move would indicate they are going backwards. On April 10, Mr. Adams made a presentation to Rebounders Club members who were available. I was fortunate to be able to attend part of the meeting. In that meeting he outlined this proposal. Obviously we could not make this public until things become official and it was unknown at that time what would be approved. We were told the league wanted to make the announcement and they did so today. There are a couple of interesting tidbits from that meeting that I recall. One, a Big 10 athletic administrator was caught saying the Big 6 leagues (Football P5 plus Big East) have a goal to eliminate all mid major at large bids in the near future. They virtually have done this now by scheduling almost all non conference games at home or on neutral courts. That will continue. The new selection criteria of how you did vs Top 50, Top 100 etc allows the big boys to be close to their goal now. 2nd he claimed that CUSA has agreed to the scheduling alliance with the SBC. As stated earlier, a part of me finds that hard to believe. Overall, this is a good move for the league and indicates a willingness to try something new. The pod system is definitely out of the box thinking. Playing the semi finals and finals at the Smoothie King Center is also a good move vs Lake Front Arena. Plenty of downtown hotels near SKC and you only stay one night. What do you guys think about these changes.

[cajun_lannister]

UL was one of the big proponents for this proposal. We pushed hard for it's approval.

I love it now we need to work on dropping no-D1 games to futher help our RPI in the future

[Cajunsmike]

I love it now we need to work on dropping no-D1 games to futher help our RPI in the future

RPI has no bearing from non D1 games. You do improve it if you play a quality opponent and beat them. Jay made a big point on his show today that your recommendation should be implemented however.

[ULvictory]

College Basketball is dying on the vine for exactly what you just stated regarding the P5. They're trying to create a monopoly within the sport, and we saw it with that travesty of a tournament bracket this past season. What's ironic is that the mid-majors shut them up with the amount of upsets that occurred. But that won't change anything. It might actually make everything worse because the P5 monopoly doesn't want that. But they could care less of ruining the fun of upsets for the millions of people who fill out brackets.

Also, you can include what AAU and the fact that it has turned into a political machine/business along with the secret illegal contacts made between the likes of Nike and Under Armor with the colleges who are following the "one and done" model. Basically, it's organized crime through collegiate athletics.

I think CUSA and the SBC are playing catch-up at this point. They're trying to stay relevant in this time of change. It's definitely a start, but I think it might be too late. I hope that I'm wrong, but the style of basketball played now plus the fact that the politics that have gotten heavily involved has ruined the sport for me.

[CajunT]

The following is something I posted on the other thread I started on this topic. Turbine, feel free to combine the two threads.

Jay and Scott talked about this on their shows today.

These changes are as a result of recommendations made by Mark Adams (ESPN color guy on mid major broadcasts and former mid major coach). Mr. Adams is a scheduling consultant hired by the SBC, CUSA, and the Horizon League. I suspect the scheduling alliance referred to in the article involves those three leagues. However, a part of me is skeptical CUSA would agree to this with the SBC due to the belief of many of those schools such a move would indicate they are going backwards. On April 10, Mr. Adams made a presentation to Rebounders Club members who were available. I was fortunate to be able to attend part of the meeting. In that meeting he outlined this proposal. Obviously we could not make this public until things become official and it was unknown at that time what would be approved. We were told the league wanted to make the announcement and they did so today. There are a couple of interesting tidbits from that meeting that I recall. One, a Big 10 athletic administrator was caught saying the Big 6 leagues (Football P5 plus Big East) have a goal to eliminate all mid major at large bids in the near future. They virtually have done this now by scheduling almost all non conference games at home or on neutral courts. That will continue. The new selection criteria of how you did vs Top 50, Top 100 etc allows the big boys to be close to their goal now. 2nd he claimed that CUSA has agreed to the scheduling alliance with the SBC. As stated earlier, a part of me finds that hard to believe. Overall, this is a good move for the league and indicates a willingness to try something new. The pod system is definitely out of the box thinking. Playing the semi finals and finals at the Smoothie King Center is also a good move vs Lake Front Arena. Plenty of downtown hotels near SKC and you only stay one night. What do you guys think about these changes.

Mike, Basinbear and myself have been talking about schedule alliances for a few years now. This will be on the docket for football soon as well, after the next conference realignment. In fact, there won't be much more movement in actual conference realignment after the current TV Contracts expire. We will see more of it when it comes to NCAA Football within 5 to 7 years.