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New Basketball Tournament Format Announced

S

Skippy

Active member
From the Big SKy Office:

The men’s and women’s basketball championships will become seven-team tournaments, one more than the previous format. Both tournaments will be played March 14-16 at the site of the respective regular-season champion. The No. 1 seed will earn a bye to the semifinals on Friday. During the past decade, the men’s tournament had a Saturday, Tuesday-Wednesday format with the regular-season champion hosting the semifinals and championship.

During the regular-season, men’s and women’s basketball teams will continue to play each team in the league twice, bringing the total number of conference games from 16 to 20 for each squad. The top seven men’s and women’s team will qualify for the Big Sky Championship.
 
I don't think we really need to worry about that.

I am impressed by Ott's recruiting, but...2 wins. doesn't say to much.
 
I like this format. It favors the regular season champion even more than the old format. Regular season games are still truely important. Can't wait for October. Bring it on. :rockon:
 
Fullerton finally gets it right.. 1. Reg season champ hosts. 2. Champ only gets 1st round bye. 3. Entire tournament @ Host site. 4. Semi's & Championship Friday & Saturday night. I expect attendance to increase 30%-35%. We'll see 9,000-10,000 on Friday March 15, & near capacity on Saturday March 16.
 
I liked the old format, gave more teams something to play for late in the season, i.e. the ability to host a first-round game. And having those first round games at the home of the first place team creates two games with no atmosphere and no fans. But the Big Sky has changed its basketball tournament format more times than most of us change sox, so I'm sure there will be another iteration coming soon.
 
The first round bye is a much better situation now. The first round games are on your floor. That is huge for scouting the other teams. Also, you will be playing two games in two nights. That is hard, but the rest of the teams, if they were to make it to the final, will be playing three games in three nights. All of that together is a huge home court advantage. Winning the regular season is everything. Every game is huge. Fullerton, definately, got it right. :coffee:
 
I can understand how teams, who always struggle to get into it, feel about not having the chance at one more home game. However, the regular season champion is THE champion and should have the best chance at getting to the dance. The BSC needs to foster a culture of fans traveling with their teams, at least for post season games. Many of our teams need to upgrade their facilities, so that it is not a complete embarassment when and if they host. :twocents:
 
oldrunner said:
I can understand how teams, who always struggle to get into it, feel about not having the chance at one more home game. However, the regular season champion is THE champion and should have the best chance at getting to the dance. The BSC needs to foster a culture of fans traveling with their teams, at least for post season games. Many of our teams need to upgrade their facilities, so that it is not a complete embarassment when and if they host. :twocents:
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The regular season champ already has a big advantage in that it gets a first-round bye, gets to host the only two games it plays, and always plays the lowest remaining seed in the tournament. If you can't win the championship with those advantages, well, it just wasn't meant to be. (See Anthony Johnson). As to fostering a culture of fans traveling with their teams, well I don't think you'll have ever see many Sac State or Portland State fans travelling to Ogden for a Big Sky tournament game. Just too far, too expensive and not enough emotional investment.

And it would be great if every Big Sky school could have a Dee Events Center, but most do not have the resources available to build one. Portland State has put together a plan to upgrade their cracker box, and Sac State has been talking about building an on-campus arena for as long as I can remember, but talk is always cheap -- somebody has to step up and fund the facilities, and so far nobody is willing to do that.
 
If the Sky has to have a tournament, then it should favor the regular season champion as much as possible. Having the lower seeded teams playing at the regular season champions venue causes more fatigue for those teams. They have to spend more time on the road, staying at a hotel, and the winners must play immediately the next night. Makes it far harder for a lower seeded team to win.

To me, the Sky is doing all they can to ensure that the regular season champion wins the tournament and represents the conference in the dance. Yes, the home team still needs to show up and win. Not every year will the Sky steal games for the regular season champ like they did in Greeley a year ago. And yes, there will be abberations, when a player has a phenomenal, almost freaky, night on the court (Anthony Johnson). That is merely part of the experience and the game, but those are rare.

Bengal, I will agree with you though, it is fun hosting a tournament game if you are the 3rd or 4th place team. Weber has hosted twice, since the Sky went to that format and both times, at least in my opinion, it was a lot of fun. However, I'm a bigger fan of hosting the entire tournament (of course) or at least having the regular season champ host. I do think that the conference should require a team to host the tournament in another facility if their on-campus facility isn't up to snuff. Yet, that really isn't a huge problem for the conference. Most schools have excellent venues in which they play basketball. I like what the Bengals have done with their floors and I've heard that the Holt is finally going to be getting some much needed upgrades. I'm just really happy that the carpet in the Holt has been changed. That was killer on players knees (football). But the Butt-Cock pavilion, Hornets Nest, and Stott need some serious help and NAU needs to get out of the Rolle, and go back to their dome. If I were a recruit, I wouldn't give NAU any serious attention due to how the school has downgraded the basketball teams importance. The Rolle, for those who are interested, is like Weber's Stromberg facility (the Swenson is far nicer than the Rolle).
 
Having the games played on the weekend is a huge improvement. That should increase the oveall attendance to the games and have a broader national recognition being played on the weekend rather than the middle of the week. Wednesday night games are very catcat. Will those games still be on TV though? More appropriately, will the championship be on ESPN? I'm guessing the Semis will be on ROOT or Altitude (hopefully with the ROOT deal Altitude has been put out to pasture).
 
The other advantage is the ability to travel to the conference champ's location if you are playing in the first round, then stay through the end over a 3-day swing. Traveling to some cities in the BSC are very difficult and expensive (like Missoula). If fans want to attend and stay until their team either wins or is eliminated, it is more feasible going to one location.
 
WeberSki said:
Fullerton finally gets it right.. 1. Reg season champ hosts. 2. Champ only gets 1st round bye. 3. Entire tournament @ Host site. 4. Semi's & Championship Friday & Saturday night. I expect attendance to increase 30%-35%. We'll see 9,000-10,000 on Friday March 15, & near capacity on Saturday March 16.
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:rockon:
 
I think there should be 3 games each day. That way, most everyone has a reason to stick around for the whole thing. Everyone should keep in mind that this thing is not for the confrence championship. That has already been decided. It is only to determine who goes to the dance as the BSC representative.
 
oldrunner said:
I think there should be 3 games each day. That way, most everyone has a reason to stick around for the whole thing. Everyone should keep in mind that this thing is not for the confrence championship. That has already been decided. It is only to determine who goes to the dance as the BSC representative.
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Actually the Big Sky considers boththe regular season winner and the tournament champions as "conference champions," and allows both to display championship banners.
 
It's certainly OK if the tourney champion wants to call themselves champions. They are. They are the tounement champion and get the auto bid to the NCAA tournement. If they happen to be the confrence champion as well, even better. If not, they can call themselves the confrence tournement champion. It's all good. But if a sixth place team comes through at the end and wins the tournement, it would be lame to call themselves the confrense champions. They really didn't earn it. :twocents:
 
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