A-10 tourney rest day

[SFspidur]

Bit of an odd move IMO...the A-10 tourney will start on Tuesday and there will be a rest/practice day on Friday for the teams advancing to the semis. Given that schedules have already been announced with a Wednesday start. Based on updated championship schedule page, looks like it goes into effect for the upcoming season.

A-10 Fall Meetings Address National Issues, Focus on Student-Athlete Leadership and NIL

WILMINGTON, Del. – The Atlantic 10 concluded its Fall Business Meetings Monday, with the league’s Athletic Directors, Senior Woman Administrators (SWAs) and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) representatives discussing the most salient national issues impacting college athletics.

atlantic10.com

https://atlantic10.com/sports/2022/8/10/MBB23.aspx

 

[GKiller]

Bit of an odd move IMO...the A-10 tourney will start on Tuesday and there will be a rest/practice day on Friday for the teams advancing to the semis. Given that schedules have already been announced with a Wednesday start. Based on updated championship schedule page, looks like it goes into effect for the upcoming season.

View embedded media

A-10 Fall Meetings Address National Issues, Focus on Student-Athlete Leadership and NIL

WILMINGTON, Del. – The Atlantic 10 concluded its Fall Business Meetings Monday, with the league’s Athletic Directors, Senior Woman Administrators (SWAs) and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) representatives discussing the most salient national issues impacting college athletics.

atlantic10.com

https://atlantic10.com/sports/2022/8/10/MBB23.aspx

Interesting for sure. SF are u aware of any other conferences having done this?

 

[SFspidur]

The closest parallel I can find (but not quite the same) is the Big West where the men's and women's tournaments are held together so they do an opening round for men and women with the bottom teams on Day 1, then have women's quarters on Day 2 and men's quarters on Day 3 before reuniting with semis for both on Day 4 and finals for both on Day 5.

There are a number of conferences that have one or more campus rounds in their tourneys, and so they have travel days in between the rounds.

I wonder what the A-10's rationale for it is.

- Avoiding low Friday night TV ratings? Unlikely.

- A one-time change because Barclays wanted to schedule another event for that night and offered the A-10 a big check? Perhaps, though with the amount of prep that goes into tournament week, seems dicey to convert everything to another event for just one day.

- Trying to give the bottom teams a bit better chance of running to the championship with 5 games now that there are two more teams participating the first day? Seems unlikely since the conference probably wants its best teams playing deepest into the tourney.

 

[VT4700]

The WCC has a day off before their semi final games. They give the 1 and 2 seeds byes to the semis.

 

[VT4700]

I like this. Good idea by the A-10. This will prevent a team from possibly having to play four games in 4 days, and maybe even five in five days. There are six games on Tuesday, so three teams will already advance to Wednesday. If just one of those teams wins Wednesday and Thursday, the day off would really benefit them. Also, teams that make the finals (hopefully both go dancing) won't be as tired for their 1st round NCAA tourney games.

 

[GKiller]

This will prevent a team from possibly having to play four games in 4 days, and maybe even five in five days. There are six games on Tuesday, so three teams will already advance to Wednesday. If just one of those teams wins Wednesday and Thursday, the day off would really benefit them.

yes its definitely a benefit to those who don't get a top 4 bye and then advance to semis. But normally tourneys r set up so that top seeds have the most rest that's why they play the early afternoon session or early evening session. and they get to play teams that are drained from extra games. In theory. To me this takes some of the advantage away from higher seeds. But I'm not against it, have to think about it more.

The other thing I imagine they talked about was how this affects attendance. It's another night in expensive NYC etc. That could have drawbacks. U could get last minute attendees from those that make it to semis bc they have travel day idk. But overall don't see it as net positive for attendance. My guess is they don't care much about that bc Barclays is more sparsely attended anyway. Not sure about quarters since u have 8 fanbases.

 

[SFspidur]

The WCC has a day off before their semi final games. They give the 1 and 2 seeds byes to the semis.

Ah yep, missed/forgot about that one. Super extreme bye setup to give their top teams the best shot.

 

[Section9.RowD]

Lukewarm from a fan perspective about this … one more day being away from home, work, and hotel costs … have to assume attendance will be almost all locals for first few rounds

 

[gospidersgo]

No strong feelings from me either way on this but overall I'm not super in favor of it:

1. We are living proof that 4 games in 4 days can happen, and makes a great story when it does

2. The first/second round byes in these conference tournaments are earned over months of play and should be meaningful, but giving all teams a break prior to semis negates some of that benefit

3. As section 9 pointed out - this move is probably a net-negative from a fan/game environment perspective, will be harder for the average fan to take off extra time in order to attend a tournament that will now stretch out for 6 total days

 

[Long Island Spiders]

I’ll be there as long as my spiders are playing!

 

[PalmTreeSpidUR]

It's kind of an odd thing. If it helps us I am all for it, if it hurts us I don't like it. Last year we had all the momentum. I don't know that we could have had that if we had a break in the middle.

Agree with what everyone else said about fans and more expenses, more days off work, etc. Also for the players--more days away from classes, etc.

 

[brooklyn brownstone]

Classic A10 move - right in the middle of one of the two weekends where college basketball gets nonstop coverage and is the talk of the sports world, the A10 will go dark for an entire day. Next level chess right there.

 

[MrTbone]

I wouldn’t say this is a worse idea than starting a land war in Asia but it hardly seems like a good one, mostly for fan/attendance reasons.