bobinator said:

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FWIW in my scenario you'd only have the players that are eligible next year. You don't get to bring back the seniors.

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yeah, your scenario only features an 8 round tournament that goes a full week longer than the actual NCAA tourney, oh, and in the time of corona, this plan of yours will use 135 different sites.

Teams are already travelling all over the country in non-conference. If that's still a problem then starting the season is off the board anyway and it doesn't matter.

You bring up an interesting point though that the sport is probably going to have to deal with.

Maybe we'll see some events like four teams all playing each other over a few days at one site to cut down on travel?

bobinator said:

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FWIW in my scenario you'd only have the players that are eligible next year. You don't get to bring back the seniors.

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And one historical former player of their choosing - alive or dead. I like it!

bobinator said:

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Teams are already travelling all over the country in non-conference. If that's still a problem then starting the season is off the board anyway and it doesn't matter.

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Yeah, ignore the part where the actual tourney is 6 rounds over 3 weeks and yours is 9 rounds over what, the six or seven weeks before the season starts?

No, it would just be adding one weekend. You already have midweek play-in games.

Oh cool, so 3 games per week after months of inactivity in a sport where they play 2 games per week for the entire 4 month season. No injury concerns.

3 games a week? Not sure why you're having a hard time wrapping your head around this. The math really isn't that hard.

It would go like this:

Play in games: T/W (There would be something like 80 play-in games over these two days at school sites. Not unlike the current "first four" only these wouldn't be at one location like the First Four is in Dayton.)

Rounds of 256/128: T/F/S/S

Rounds of 64/32: T/F/S/S

Rounds of 16/8: T/F/S/S

Rounds of 4/2: T/F/S/S

It's literally the current tournament format with an extra weekend.

FWIW, I know the myriad reasons none of this will happen. I'm not going to send this plan to congress or anything. I'm just saying it would be a fun way to welcome back sports, maybe make some money and it's not as impossible an idea as folks have made it out to be.

I do agree that we are in a time where things that could normally never happen might be possible.

Hop said:

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TXAggie2011 said:

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If they can have the NIT Tip-Off tournament, why can't we have some sort of a "NCAA tournament"?

I know it wouldn't be the same but so what? Just don't call the champion the "National champion."

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There is a big difference between a preseason tournament that lasts a weekend with the actual players that will play the upcoming season. It's a celebration event to start the new season that has little-to-no impact on the preparations for the upcoming season. Maybe the NCAA let's you start practicing 3-4 days earlier.

What you are wanting is bringing back all the players from last year and having a 3-4 weekend event to start a season where 25+% of the players will not have eligibility after the event. It's an idea that came from a coach scattershooting on a local radio show who probably put no serious thought into the execution of the idea. Yeah, it sounds good on the surface, but the details simply aren't feasible. So the NCAA will allow teams to start organized practices in early September for this event? Do coaches split up their 20 hours a week...10 hours for last year's team and 10 hours for next year's team? Must these seniors coming back for this preseason tourney enroll in the school again to play potentially one more game?

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I didn't say any of what follows that bolded phrase.

I wish I could flag Hop's post for "poor quality trolling."

I don't know if it's trolling or reading comprehension, but I think quarantine is affecting Hop.

I'm in favor of some innovation. I'll be honest that I don't have a well-considered solution. I think Huggy Bear was shooting from the lip. But it's intriguing to consider what could be done assuming the season starts on time. Which I think it will.

I'm still not worried for the NCAA itself. It will survive as long as some form of intercollegiate sports are played at a significant plurality of colleges and universities. But it built its revenue off the Men's BB Tournament TV and ticket and then redistributes that wealth with the blessing of especially the bigger schools in part so they avoid anti-trust suits from smaller ones.

If things are back to normal in the fall...that model is sustainable. If the schools are in trouble...who knows?

You must make the Mays Business School so proud.

Not awarding your trolling with more clicks.

Bobinator is easily winning this thread. We should create a Surly forum for those who want to be miserable. I support the idea of a tournament to start the season.

Edited to say that all of the problems could be managed pretty well with a little thought. Bobinator had good plenty of good solutions already.

Nice try, Hop's obvious sock.