SMF idea for a College Basketball Opening Day

[Sean Miller Fan]

Veterans Day. No games before Veterans Day or whatever the federal holiday observance of it is if it falls on Saturday or Sunday. A good portion of America is off work or school that day so you can do some day games and work in home games for Army, Navy, and Air Force. I'd also bring back the 24 Hours of College Hoops for this.

Midnight: Pac 12 game
2AM: Big West or WCC game
4AM: Hawaii home game
6AM: NEC, MAAC, AE, etc
8AM: basically the same
10AM: maybe like CAA or SoCon

Then at noon, you start with big games and run them to midnight. I feel like college basketball needs a jolt in November. It probably has the least anticipated start of any major American sport.

As we know, MLB starts on a weekday afternoon and ESPN has done a nice job with the NHL opening with a weekday afternoon game. This year Seattle hosted a game at 1:30 PM on a Tuesday (4:30 eastern). We need more of a grand opening for college hoops.

 

[MorningCoffee13]

That would push the season forward one week and with the inevitable expansion of the tournament it’s more likely basketball would begin on Halloween or something.

One thing g to consider is that as long as CBS has the contract the tournament will NEVER occur during the same weekend as The Masters. And the progressive folks in Augusta will never allow that sacred weekend to change. They did it for covid and it’s essentially like nobody in golf accepts that result as equivalently legitimate because of how the course played.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

That would push the season forward one week and with the inevitable expansion of the tournament it’s more likely basketball would begin on Halloween or something.

One thing g to consider is that as long as CBS has the contract the tournament will NEVER occur during the same weekend as The Masters. And the progressive folks in Augusta will never allow that sacred weekend to change. They did it for covid and it’s essentially like nobody in golf accepts that result as equivalently legitimate because of how the course played.

People forget the season used to start the week before Thanksgiving but ONLY for the PreSeason NIT games. So there were like 8 games that entire week. Then, Thanksgiving Week, everyone else started. Those Maui Invitational and Great Alaska Shootout games were those teams first games of the season. Then, they moved the season up to the week before Thanksgiving. For example, this was our first game dates during Howland/Dixon:

2000: Nov 17
01: Nov 16
02: Nov 23 (Pete opening)
03: Nov 14 (one of those MSG Coaches vs Cancer tip offs)
04: Nov 20
05: Nov 19
06: Nov 12 (special Maggie Dixon game)
07: Nov 9
08: Nov 14
09: Nov 13
10: Nov 8 (1st College Bball game of season because it was NIT)
11: Nov 11
12: Nov 9
13: Nov 8
14: Nov 14
15: Nov 13 (Japan Gonzaga)
16: Nov 11
17: Nov 10
18: Nov 6
19: Nov 6
20: Nov 25 Covid
21: Nov 9
22: Nov 7
23: Nov 6
24: Nov 4