Fifth Avenue Forum

ext 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.

Or the top teams help make each other mediocre and no one gets in.

It's elitist to say it but that's the way the NCAA committee thinks -- "they're C-USA, they're going to have to do a lot to get 2 or more bids most years". What can they do? Schedule better in the non-conference season and win those games. Middle Tennessee was a fantastic team this past year but they got whacked in their quarterfinals of their conference tournament by a team that wasn't really that good this season. In the non-con, they played Ole Miss, Vandy, Auburn, Miami, and USC. That's great scheduling. The problem was, they went 2-3 in those games with the 2 wins coming against Vandy and Ole Miss, who were last and dead last in the SEC this season (both 12-20). Unfortunately, those not in the power conferences are forced to schedule a little better and a few more road games than they might like in order to catch the eye of the committee. From a competitive standpoint, I like what C-USA is trying to do. But it won't mean anything unless 2 or 3 of the teams involved in that 5-team cycle have any sort of national buzz.

It's elitist to say it but that's the way the NCAA committee thinks -- "they're C-USA, they're going to have to do a lot to get 2 or more bids most years". What can they do? Schedule better in the non-conference season and win those games. Middle Tennessee was a fantastic team this past year but they got whacked in their quarterfinals of their conference tournament by a team that wasn't really that good this season. In the non-con, they played Ole Miss, Vandy, Auburn, Miami, and USC. That's great scheduling. The problem was, they went 2-3 in those games with the 2 wins coming against Vandy and Ole Miss, who were last and dead last in the SEC this season (both 12-20). Unfortunately, those not in the power conferences are forced to schedule a little better and a few more road games than they might like in order to catch the eye of the committee. From a competitive standpoint, I like what C-USA is trying to do. But it won't mean anything unless 2 or 3 of the teams involved in that 5-team cycle have any sort of national buzz.

Zero good teams want to play a team like Mtsu. No upside to playing teams like that

TIL "The Basketball Tournament" is a thing.

Nevada was one of Sister Mary Joseph's victims, no? (what's her name again?)