MAC Basketball Changes

[BGFalconfromCincy]

No more divisions, 20 game conference schedule, conference tournament will now have just eight teams in it with all games in Cleveland. Postseason tournaments for eight other sports have also been eliminated

https://www.wtol.com/mobile/article/spo ... a5a6d8fe3c" target="_blank

[BGSU33]

No more divisions, 20 game conference schedule, conference tournament will now have just eight teams in it with all games in Cleveland. Postseason tournaments for eight other sports have also been eliminated

https://www.wtol.com/mobile/article/spo ... a5a6d8fe3c" target="_blank

The elimination of divisions in hoops has been WAY overdue. I believe the MAC was the only conference remaining that had it for the last several years. Many other conference did away with it years ago.

[FalconTurf]

22 games and you play everyone twice. Would be a completely fair way to get a regular season champ.

[threestooges]

22 games and you play everyone twice. Would be a completely fair way to get a regular season champ.

This. I came here to say the same thing. I don't know why you would get so close to a double round-robin schedule & not go all the way.

[hammb]

22 games and you play everyone twice. Would be a completely fair way to get a regular season champ.

This. I came here to say the same thing. I don't know why you would get so close to a double round-robin schedule & not go all the way.

Given the MAC's inability (or unwillingness) to schedule an enjoyable out of conference slate, I'd very much welcome a 22 game conference schedule where we home & home with everybody. No divisions, and every plays an equal schedule. Cannot get a better representation of where each team is in any given year.

I also greatly welcome ditching that first round of games. They've always been painful to me as none of our teams have a big enough following to gear up for a game in 3 days. It almost always falls on spring break as well (at least at BGSU). Historically if we've had those home games we've played what is (at that point) the biggest games of the year in front of basically no fans. It's brutal.

Personally, I'd like to see them go one extra step though. Rather than taking 8 teams to Cleveland for 3 rounds of games, I'd welcome taking 6 teams with the top 2 seeds getting byes. I've been to those quarterfinal games at the Q and they don't bring many fans, and they're not televised (beyond ESPN+) so I doubt very seriously you're losing much revenue (and saving a day's worth of renting the Q, although god knows how our contractual obligation looks).

To me the goal of the MAC tournament (if you're going to insist on having it) should be to stack the deck as much in the favor of the best team winning as you can. We rarely have more than 1 or 2 teams that have any hope of pulling an upset in the big tournament. Any time our top team(s) get knocked off in Cleveland it lowers those chances even more.

[FalconTurf]

To cut travel costs and to assure D1 competition more MAC games are perfectly logical. Having a small footprint benefits the MAC in this situation plus within that footprint are plenty of D1 schools for non conference games. Geography is our friend especially at BG being toward center.
Is there a TV contract or arena contract that dictates 7 tournament games? Otherwise 4 would be best. Teams didn’t like getting a bye then playing in the big arena first time against a team with a game in so I’d say 4 or 8

[Schadenfreude]

Postseason conference tournaments have always struck me as gimmicky. Basically, the MAC plays out an entire season just to determine seeding for a conference tournament. So, for me, scaling back or eliminating postseason conference tournaments doesn't bother me that much.

That said, it's awfully tough to win a single division, 12-team conference. Major League Baseball finally split into divisions when each league reached 12 teams.

When this pandemic is no longer such a pressing economic issue, perhaps the MAC could establish divisions for all sports where there are at least 12 participating schools. The postseason tournament could then just be a championship game or championship series between the division winners.

(I wouldn't expect the MAC to actually do this. Players probably want to play as many games as possible. Coaches too, probably. Plus this would lead to arguments about schedule balance, and which schools had the toughest crossover matches. But at least in this scenario, the regular season would mean quite a bit. Division titles would have meaning, too.)

I'd make an exception for basketball, where an audience seems to exist for semi-final and perhaps even quarterfinal games.

[BleedOrange]

Having "1" MAC is better for the conference's national identity. MAC East and MAC West dilutes the MAC brand, which is obscure to begin with.

[BGSU33]

22 games and you play everyone twice. Would be a completely fair way to get a regular season champ.

This. Why stop only 2 games short of it? It's not like any MAC non-conference schedules are too important to cut into for it. Most of them are mediocre at best.

[BGSU33]

Having "1" MAC is better for the conference's national identity. MAC East and MAC West dilutes the MAC brand, which is obscure to begin with.

They were also unnecessary and meaningless at this point too. They no longer served a purpose since doing away with division winners automatically earning a bye to Cleveland. Every year that the MAC continued as the only conference in the country to keep them was irritating. I guess it took a pandemic for the MAC to finally get on board with the rest of the country. SMH .... better late than never I guess.

[threestooges]

22 games and you play everyone twice. Would be a completely fair way to get a regular season champ.

This. Why stop only 2 games short of it? It's not like any MAC non-conference schedules are too important to cut into for it. Most of them are mediocre at best.

I thought the exact same thing -- why not go to 22 & play a completely fair, double round-robin schedule? According to someone I trust (for the most part), the plan is to go to 22 games for the '21-22 season, but some schools already had their non-conference schedules finalized or close to finalized for '20-21, and had contracts they couldn't or didn't want to break, etc.