Bob Huggins says major conferences should create own college basketball postseason event, ditch NCAA tournament

[Tango Two]

Madness? Huggins says majors need own tourney

Bob Huggins wants the major conferences to control college basketball's biggest financial stream by ditching the NCAA tourney in favor of their own postseason event. Said Huggins of smaller programs: "The other people, they can have their own tournament."

www.espn.com

 

[kcg88]

Bob Huggins is wrong.

 

[dpwhite]

Way wrong

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Would be horrible for the sport.

 

[Joey Bags]

Lol old man yells at cloud

 

[Barnaby&Neill]

Kill that idea, kill it with fire

 

[HeavenUniv.]

It is coming. It might be a few years, it might be ten, but it is coming. Kentucky will eventually say they have had enough of schools like Manhattan, Saint Peter’s, Central Connecticut, etc. who spend nothing on their program , have no fans, and play in high school gyms.

 

[BigEastPhil]

Sorry but the small schools upsetting Goliath is what makes the NCAA Tourney such a magnificent event. Hate when The big schools act like elitists.

 

[srru86]

It is coming. It might be a few years, it might be ten, but it is coming. Kentucky is eventually say they have had enough of schools like Manhattan, Saint Peter’s, Central Connecticut, etc. who spend nothing on their program , have no fans, and play in high school gyms.

This is closer to being right than most posts on this thread.

Everybody loves Cinderella, but she don't pay the bills.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

It is coming. It might be a few years, it might be ten, but it is coming. Kentucky is eventually say they have had enough of schools like Manhattan, Saint Peter’s, Central Connecticut, etc. who spend nothing on their program , have no fans, and play in high school gyms.

I disagree. 95% of the time it only impacts a round of 64 game anyway. If you eliminated that round it takes a lot of hype out of the tournament. The event following on a whole would suffer. Taking 64+ major conference teams would defeat the purpose of the regular season completely. Would never happen. So it either stays this way or March madness becomes a 32 team major conference event and it won’t have close to the same national appeal.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

This is closer to being right than most posts on this thread.

Everybody loves Cinderella, but she don't pay the bills.

Wrong - I’ll correct. It “don’t pay the bills” in the elite 8 and beyond. Maybe to a lesser extent, the sweet 16 but it’s less of a factor since there are still other games going on anyway. Cinderella occasionally makes it to the point where the finances are impacted, but the ends don’t justify the means.

The national appeal and following for the first weekend of the tournament is huge and would take a tremendous hit if you changed it to only be major conference teams. A ton of money would be lost on a net basis.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Heaven is 100% right. PSAL is right too where the national appeal takes a hit too.

NHL would be the winner here.

 

[anon_ivydyf0amkzay]

It is coming. It might be a few years, it might be ten, but it is coming. Kentucky is eventually say they have had enough of schools like Manhattan, Saint Peter’s, Central Connecticut, etc. who spend nothing on their program , have no fans, and play in high school gyms.

Not a popular opinion but this! This is even more true for football!

 

[MadRU]

European soccer just tried this with a proposed Super League. It fell through almost immediately. Fan protests were heard.

 

[knightinaz]

At the end of the day it always comes down to money.

Football, at the FBS level, no longer plays for an NCAA championship, they play for the CFP championship so the P5 conferences can control the majority of the money.

The NCAA makes $1 billion/year from the basketball tournament and shares about 50% of that with the member schools which includes all D1 conferences.

What if a network offered the P5 $400MM for a 24 team tournament? Of course people will complain that it's not 68 teams like it is now or, that it eliminates the chance for George Mason to go on a Cinderella run but, the P5 Commissioners and AD's don't care about that, as they've all demonstrated for years. All they care about is how much money will it generate. If it's more than they make now it becomes an easy decision.

The breakaway has already happened for football because of money. To think that it won't happen for basketball, with all that money on the table, is naïve thinking

 

[ecojew]

I hope that the powers-that-be never tamper with the best sporting spectacle in the USA year-after-year. Under Huggins idea, the #1 team in the country wouldn't be in the tournament. Last year, 2 of the Final Four wouldn't have been there.

As for Kentucky, let them just join the NBA if they only wish to play teams in big arenas. They don't use student-athletes anyway.

 

[NickRU714]

1. Whatever benefits Rutgers the most.
2. I couldn't care less about "national appeal". See #1.
3. "Cinderella upsets" are great until Rutgers gets upset. See #1.
Not hard to imagine in the near future we are a 5 seed and playing the dreaded "Cinderella 12 Seed".
Can't wait to see all the "but but.. Cinderella's make the tournament great" posts.

 

[NickRU714]

4. Give me the option that puts the most money in Rutgers athletic budget.
See #1.

 

[srru86]

1. Whatever benefits Rutgers the most.
2. I couldn't care less about "national appeal". See #1.
3. "Cinderella upsets" are great until Rutgers gets upset. See #1.
Not hard to imagine in the near future we are a 5 seed and playing the dreaded "Cinderella 12 Seed".
Can't wait to see all the "but but.. Cinderella's make the tournament great" posts.

Good points

 

[ScarletKid2008]

1. Whatever benefits Rutgers the most.
2. I couldn't care less about "national appeal". See #1.
3. "Cinderella upsets" are great until Rutgers gets upset. See #1.
Not hard to imagine in the near future we are a 5 seed and playing the dreaded "Cinderella 12 Seed".
Can't wait to see all the "but but.. Cinderella's make the tournament great" posts.

Thats how I think of the world as well. But RU is in a bit of a danger zone , in my opinion.

If the bluebloods of the athletic world wanted to secede and not include everyone currently in the Power 5 (so maybe they wanted to the top 35, 40, or even 50 schools) .. RU would certainly be on the wrong side of that conversation based on just about everything except proximity to major markets. Many can argue that RU doesn't draw those markets and with a semi-professional model, you wouldn't need RU with all the other national brands.
That's my concern with this whole thing. IF (really when) a change comes .. its likely to be a compression schools to concentrate their earning power and split it with fewer parties.

 

[MADHAT1]

Bob Huggins is wrong.

Huggins might be wrong but you can bet there are others that look at major conferences breaking away from the NCAA's March Madness and having the major basketball conferences host their own instead making this move very possible in the future
Money is a good reason for some to shaft the smaller schools that get in tourney and make their own big boy/girl event that leaves the smallewr programs by the wayside so they don't share in the payout

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

1. Whatever benefits Rutgers the most.
2. I couldn't care less about "national appeal". See #1.
3. "Cinderella upsets" are great until Rutgers gets upset. See #1.
Not hard to imagine in the near future we are a 5 seed and playing the dreaded "Cinderella 12 Seed".
Can't wait to see all the "but but.. Cinderella's make the tournament great" posts.

You do know that under the proposed format change, Rutgers tourney drought would live on, right? To qualify for the new Big Dance we’d need to be the equivalent of a 6 seed. This arrangement would be horrible for Rutgers and most major conference teams.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Huggins might be wrong but you can bet there are others that look at major conferences breaking away from the NCAA's March Madness and having the major basketball conferences host their own instead making this move very possible in the future
Money is a good reason for some to shaft the smaller schools that get in tourney and make their own big boy/girl event that leaves the smallewr programs by the wayside so they don't share in the payout

Basketball and football are two different animals. I don’t think the network demand for a 24 team tourney of major conference teams would be as high as some seem to think it would be. Only the most extreme college hoop junkies would watch vs. the current structure which attracts millions of casual fans. The worth of that plays into the equation.

 

[NickRU714]

You do know that under the proposed format change, Rutgers tourney drought would live on, right? To qualify for the new Big Dance we’d need to be the equivalent of a 6 seed. This arrangement would be horrible for Rutgers and most major conference teams.

Are you presuming Rutgers can't continue progressing to being a Top 6 seed?
Don't really see that as a problem. That's the goal anyway right, perennial Top 25 team?

 

[NewJerseyHawk]

It won't happen, all it is doing is pointing out a more realistic revenue stream for those programs carrying the sport from November to mid March.

The ironic thing with Huggins and his crazy comments would be his goal would be to have this tournament, but what happens when he needs a point guard and power forward because one kid transfers and another one goes to the Pros......?? Huggins would be the 1st coach recruiting a kid from a program that isn't in the Power 5 conference, to replace the kids he may lose.

There are a lot of small changes that can be made but there won't be anything happening anytime soon.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

Are you presuming Rutgers can't continue progressing to being a Top 6 seed?
Don't really see that as a problem. That's the goal anyway right, perennial Top 25 team?

Nobody except the Duke and Kansas blue blood types are perennial 6 seeds. Check your history. In the model being proposed, most teams, most years would know a third of the way through the season that they have no chance of making the play offs. There are already issues with sustaining fan interest throughout basketball season. This model would make it so much worse.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

The reason I don’t think this will ever happen is because of the procedural events that would have to first occur to actually make it reality.

Presumably, if conferences still exist, this would have to be a conference level decision to participate, right? It’s easy to imagine the “money” at the end of the tunnel, but the dominos actually have to fall first for that to happen. Realistically, no conference other than the B12 (and maybe the ACC depending on how much influence UNC holds over the other schools) would have a majority in favor of this move. The closest BIG team to perennial 6 seed level is Michigan State. Maybe this would appeal to them. The big time football teams (Michigan, OSU, Iowa, etc. would not want this - it would hurt their basketball programs long term too). They’ve been good lately but there are plenty of down years for these programs and it would be a very unappealing format for rebuild prospects. Kentucky has very little pull in the SEC. The other teams in the conference would not want this arrangement either for the same reason. The PAC10 has trouble getting teams in the field as it is. Again - basketball is not football where there are only 12 regular season game to sustain fan interest. It’s a LONG season.

 

[kcg88]

The NCAA tournament is great for three reasons:

1. The volume of games in a four day span (the opening weekend is 48 games over four days)
2. Cinderella teams upsetting big schools
3. High caliber of play from the best of the best in the Sweet 16 and beyond.

Huggins' proposal decimates the first two aspects while leaving the third unchanged. By the way, Turner and CBS would absolutely hate this idea too and they're the ones paying for it.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

The NCAA tournament is great for three reasons:

1. The volume of games in a four day span (the opening weekend is 48 games over four days)
2. Cinderella teams upsetting big schools
3. High caliber of play from the best of the best in the Sweet 16 and beyond.

Huggins' proposal decimates the first two aspects while leaving the third unchanged. By the way, Turner and CBS would absolutely hate this idea too and they're the ones paying for it.

The only tweak would be on the 3rd point - should be “largely” unchanged. Every once in a while a Cinderella like Butler defies the odds.

That said - the irony here is that the very guy promoting this change, coaches a team that literally demonstrated a decade or so ago (when did they upset one of the best UK team ever and go to the final 4?) that this problem would not be solved by a smaller major conference field (and might even be made worse). From a viewing perspective, do you think CBS wanted Duke vs WVU or Duke vs UK? Come on. Think it really sparked that much more viewing interest for the next game when the Mountaineers upset the 1 seed vs if it had been a Cinderella?

 

[Joey Bags]

To get to where Huggy-boi wants to go the sport would basically have to collapse on its footprint lol. It will never happen. Not saying things won't be tweaked over the years, but a P5 tourney won't happen unless college athletics completely collapse in which case you'd have much bigger issues than "who would participate in a post season tourney".

 

[Steve91562]

Politics/Washington DC would probably get involved if they did something drastic.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

This won’t even come down to politics.

Basketball is not football. The media markets would not push for this. Each individual game in football is worth so much more than an individual basketball game. The financial benefits of guaranteeing more brand name match ups in football wouldn’t be realized in hoops. And in basketball, it wouldn’t make more appealing match ups more probable the same way anyway.

And there aren’t enough influential teams with aligned interest in furthering this idea to come together to move it forward. The idea would be dead on arrival.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

On a separate and not completely unrelated note. Take a look at birth rates past 2005 and the current decline in college enrollment. There will be many colleges that will be closing their doors or changing their cost structure. I believe college costs are finally going to stop going up.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

On a separate and not completely unrelated note. Take a look at birth rates past 2005 and the current decline in college enrollment. There will be many colleges that will be closing their doors or changing their cost structure. I believe college costs are finally going to stop going up.

Probably - but it will not have enough of an impact at the D1 level to change March Madness. Maybe you see a few lower major conferences combining into one so a handful less auto bids. Nothing more than that.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Probably - but it will not have enough of an impact at the D1 level to change March Madness. Maybe you see a few lower major conferences combining into one so a handful less auto bids. Nothing more than that.

it will be one off colleges in some of the conferences. I do think with the fight for revenue will always be there, especially if total revenue eventually drops because of cord cutting. Not sure how NIL will fit in to the cost side of things, if at all.

If you are Quinnipaiac charging 60K per year I'd be worried once the next recession hits (if ever?!?)

 

[lloyde dobler]

At the end of the day it always comes down to money.

Football, at the FBS level, no longer plays for an NCAA championship, they play for the CFP championship so the P5 conferences can control the majority of the money.

The NCAA makes $1 billion/year from the basketball tournament and shares about 50% of that with the member schools which includes all D1 conferences.

What if a network offered the P5 $400MM for a 24 team tournament? Of course people will complain that it's not 68 teams like it is now or, that it eliminates the chance for George Mason to go on a Cinderella run but, the P5 Commissioners and AD's don't care about that, as they've all demonstrated for years. All they care about is how much money will it generate. If it's more than they make now it becomes an easy decision.

The breakaway has already happened for football because of money. To think that it won't happen for basketball, with all that money on the table, is naïve thinking

There was never an NCAA championship in FBS football

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

There was never an NCAA championship in FBS football

This - it’s completely the opposite. Super conference or not, the football playoff model is being expanded from what it was - not scaled back.

No matter how you try to spin it, going from a 68 team field down to 24ish teams reduces the national tourney hype, it does not expand it. Your not going to have the media outlets pushing this behind the scenes as they’ve done for football for this reason.

 

[kcg88]

This - it’s completely the opposite. Super conference or not, the football playoff model is being expanded from what it was - not scaled back.

No matter how you try to spin it, going from a 68 team field down to 24ish teams reduces the national tourney hype, it does not expand it. Your not going to have the media outlets pushing this behind the scenes as they’ve done for football for this reason.

Exactly. Either the tournament becomes much smaller, which kills bracket pools (and that's like 85% of the tournament's success) or you allow teams that went like 6-14 in conference play in, in which case it becomes a joke.

 

[TDIrish27]

The risk to college hoops currently is that the sport is all about the Tournament .

That is not healthy and IMO the powers that be need to find a way to make the regular season more attractive or the Networks which aren't conference affiliated are going to start dropping the amount they're willing to spend for it.

 

[srru86]

On a separate and not completely unrelated note. Take a look at birth rates past 2005 and the current decline in college enrollment. There will be many colleges that will be closing their doors or changing their cost structure. I believe college costs are finally going to stop going up.

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