C-USA will seed for leage schedule after 14 games

[ArmyVet]

Not a bad idea for a struggling league.

Tired of low seeds and early exits from the NCAA tournament, Conference USA is ready to try something different.

Next season, C-USA’s men’s basketball schedule will look nothing like that of any other Division I conference. Instead of releasing a hard-set regular season conference schedule, C-USA will seed its teams after the opening 14 games of the conference slate. The conference will then face its best teams off against one another over the next four games, with the end goal of placing multiple teams in the NCAA tournament and securing higher seeds for those teams. It’s the old “iron sharpens iron” adage, basically, with some added strength-of-schedule boost built in.

https://deadspin.com/conference-usa-is- ... 1826386373

[stever20]

Not a bad idea for a struggling league.

Tired of low seeds and early exits from the NCAA tournament, Conference USA is ready to try something different.

Next season, C-USA’s men’s basketball schedule will look nothing like that of any other Division I conference. Instead of releasing a hard-set regular season conference schedule, C-USA will seed its teams after the opening 14 games of the conference slate. The conference will then face its best teams off against one another over the next four games, with the end goal of placing multiple teams in the NCAA tournament and securing higher seeds for those teams. It’s the old “iron sharpens iron” adage, basically, with some added strength-of-schedule boost built in.

https://deadspin.com/conference-usa-is- ... 1826386373

It's a fascinating idea. For a conference with several RPI bombs, it makes total sense.

I guess the question to me, will for teams in 1st pod that were natural rivals, do you play a conference team 3 times in the regular season?

[Friarsfan94]

Good point raised on the Friar Board. What if (BIG if, considering we're talking about the AAC here lol )there are 6 good teams in conference? Teams 1-5 beat up on each other the last 4 games and team 6 is handed 4 wins against Tulane and East Carolina? I guess the AAC is basically just conceding that they will never have more than 4/5 good teams lmao.

[Hall2012]

I like the idea and it's fair enough because it is risk-reward. Avoiding late season RPI landmines and adding the best wins the league can provide certainly has the potential to get an extra team into the tournament or boost a seed. But at the same time, challenging a team that's perhaps bubble-in at the time with 4 straight tough games certainly has the potential to add some losses and knock them out - very possibly without boosting anyone else enough to replace them.

If nothing else, it'll add some excitement to the regular season title battle as all the contenders will finish the season head to head.