Here's an interesting article about OOC events. I learned some new things.
I found this line interesting:
http://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2...ll-early-season-tournaments-exempt-background
Contract or not, Pitt obviously has some sort of agreement with Gazelle Group as they've been in 5 of their tournaments, not including the post-season CBI, but 0 of the ESPN events, which typically have better teams. As we talked about in the other thread, Gazelle has had some premier teams in the same tournaments we've been in........just not in the years we've been in them. The quality of the tournament has been so bad compared to when they've had "premier" teams in the same events, it really frustrates some of us and even makes us some of us question how badly Pitt wants to play "premier" teams in these events especially since we're one of the only major college teams who chooses not to play a high-level home and home.
As the Gotham Classic is the only Gazelle event we haven't yet been in, hopefully we can be done with them after this year and start playing in the ESPN events or Atlantis, which is quickly surpassing Maui as the #1 exempt event. Of course you never know who you're going to get in these events, but ESPN has enough clout and puts enough effort into it that you're pretty much guranteed to get a better field than with Gazelle. Gazelle is hit or miss, for us its been miss.
If it were up to me, I would get rid of exempt events altogether. As a fan, I'd rather watch Pitt play San Diego State at the Pete or Kansas State on TV in the Octagon of Doom than on a neutral court. I think it takes some of the fun away from college basketball. Not only that, but it outsources profits to these third parties like Gazelle and ESPN, who run the events. If SDSU (for example) comes to the Pete, that's a packed house and it increases the value of a season ticket package. November/December have become so boring, college basketball has basically conceded the months to the NFL and College Football, it would be so much better if we could get more games on campus.
My proposal is simply to just have a 31 game schedule with no exempt events. There probably still would be a few tournaments out there like the NIT, Maui, Atlantis, Orlando but many teams would decide to stay away from tournaments altogether since they wouldn't provide an exempt benefit.
I would even go as far as having a 20 game, or even a 22 game conference schedule to increase interest earlier in the season. That would sound insane to some I'm sure, but consider that in football, the Pac 12, Big 12, and Big 10 are already playing 75% of their regular season schedule as conference games. The ACC and SEC play 67%. Currently, in basketball, those conferences are only playing 58% of their schedule as conference games. 20 games would be 65%. 22 would be 71%. Most ACC fans wouldn't mind UNC and Duke visiting a little more often. Coaches would hate it but AD's would love it. The excuse would be "we'd beat up on each other and nobody would make the NCAA Tournament." That's only an excuse though as it would probably help teams' chances rather than hurt them.
If there were a straight 31 game schedule with no exempt events and 20 conference games, a team like Pitt could play:
20 ACC games (7 teams twice, 6 teams once)
Big Ten
Duquesne
High level home and home
High level home and home
High level home and home
High level home and home
Cupcake
Cupcake
Cupcake
Cupcake
Cupcake
I know everyone is trying to figure out why interest in college basketball is down nationally, well maybe they should read the 2nd part of this thread. Nobody cares about cupcake games. The P5 should get together and come to some mutual agreement to minimize those and play each other more. Then the coaches wont have to worry about some team getting in over them who manipulated the RPI.
