Examining college basketball's scheduling conundrum

Nicole Auerbach | USA TODAY Sports

College basketball season stretches from early November into April, though for the most casual of fans, it truly only occupies the month of March.

This is a sport that celebrates its end better than any other, and dominates the sports landscape from Selection Sunday through the Final Four. To many in and around the game, the millions of dollars involved and high television ratings and attendance figures suggest the NCAA tournament is certainly not broken.

But college basketball's regular season is a different story. In many parts of the country, the start of the season begins without much buzz, sandwiched in between college football and NFL games. A prime example: Gonzaga-Arizona, one of the biggest non-conference matchups of the season featuring two top-10 teams, tipped off at 5:15 p.m. ET on the Saturday of college football's championship weekend, merely a blip on the radar at best.

Outside of hoops-crazed hotbeds, attention tends not to shift until conference play begins around New Year's Eve — which also coincides with the end of bowl season. Just ask any coach at a so-called football school.

"I think a lot of fans, they plug into college basketball and go, man, Notre Dame is 9-1, how'd that happen? Or Notre Dame's 3-6, what the heck's going on?" Irish coach Mike Brey said. "There's a lot of that with us right now. I think we're always trying to figure out how to keep marketing our game, other than just March Madness."

Brey's Notre Dame basketball team started the year 13-1 prior to the Irish's bowl game, and he admits that "there's such football energy through the fall that sometimes it's hard to get our fan base to concentrate on basketball" outside of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge or a marquee opponent, like Indiana.

"I'm always conscious of that," Brey said. "(Our football team) beat LSU in the bowl game. I think after a day of our fans hashing it out, they were ready to think about basketball full-time. (Ohio State basketball coach) Thad Matta and I have joked about that, and I think with a lot of guys who coach at big football places, it's kind of the same mindset."

This goes beyond competing with college football for eyeballs. The NBA and NHL overlap, too. The NFL plays three nights a week every week. For many casual sports fans, Brey said, attention to college basketball doesn't really begin until after the Super Bowl.

With less than a month to go until Selection Sunday, the sport is entering its most notable time of the year, prompting an examination of what's come before — the (in)visibility issues of its regular season and its lackluster start. Can it be fixed? Should it be shortened?

"I don't see it ever being a one-semester sport," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "It's really a fall, winter and part of spring sport. Just the way it is. I don't think you fool around with the tradition of that. I think if you mess with that, you're going to open up windows for other sports and close windows for your sport.

"I would rather take a look at what we're doing with the windows that we have."​

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The issue, put simply, is that there aren't many exclusive windows for college basketball prior to February, due to heavy overlap with both college football and the NFL — overlap that has increased in recent years.

College basketball practices now begin as early as September, with scrimmages coming in October and myriad exempt events in November.

Meanwhile, the behemoth that is college football has grown considerably. Its late-November rivalry games and early December championship games have become must-see matchups, and they've taken on an increased importance in the College Football Playoff era. The Playoff itself has extended football season by a week with its championship game.

"It's very hard for basketball to emerge out of that," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said. "The fact of it is, it's hard to say there hasn't been dilution (in college basketball's regular season) — the energy is when the conference season starts. There are some nice trips, nice games. But for the most part, it's after the college football (bowl games) are over. Those have just become huge attractions."

Traditionally, in certain parts of the country dominated by college football, attendance dips and viewership is down until college football's bowl season ends. SEC country is perhaps the best example of this.

"Our efforts can be and should be trying to help in those areas of the country that need help in attendance and attention to the game," said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA vice president of men's basketball championships. "In many cases, the challenge is with football. There are areas of the country where football is king and is beloved, for good reason."

To Gavitt, popularity issues are regional. He pointed out that when the Big Ten opens conference play around Christmas, its teams play to sold-out crowds. And among basketball bluebloods like Duke, North Carolina and Kansas, there's no shortage of interest whenever games are played.

Gavitt expressed mixed feelings about a suggestion of shortening the regular season by cutting a few non-conference games so the football overlap shrinks.

"It's not a uniform national problem," Gavitt said. "How we get at that, I don't know. It'd certainly help in some areas of the country if they could get further away from football season, bowl season, whatever it might be. How do you fit that into the overall national calendar? There are other areas of the country that are dying for basketball to start conference play in earnest right after Christmas."

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Some coaches like the status quo. They like spacing out 31 regular-season games, and the way there's a few months in the fall for their players to ease into academics before meaningful matchups are played. They like early-season tournaments often held in exotic locales, a chance to both take players on a fun trip and also boost their team's non-conference résumés. They like watching their team grow as the season unfolds. Plus, as Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim put it, "Kids like to play games. I think they'd rather play than practice."

But even those who like the way things are will admit it's a long season. Coaches have to be strategic in the way they both rest their players and run practices. They also have to manage the challenges that come along with two semesters' or quarters' worth of classes.

Most of those interviewed for this story felt college basketball could benefit from fewer early-season games and pushing the season start date back a couple of weeks. There could be negative monetary side effects to that if teams cut home games, but perhaps a financial benefit if teams cut early-season tournaments or neutral-site games (and the subsequent travel costs).

And although providing inventory to television partners is important, Delany said, in terms of his league's Big Ten Network and the November time frame, "Our problem is not too few (games), it's probably too many. It also comes at a time we're doing volleyball and football. We would always love to have more quality games, but I don't think we necessarily need more games." He said games in January and February are much more valuable because of conference races and traditional rivalries.

Lopping off a handful of early games would certainly help reduce the overlap period. The question is: Would it be enough to offset the logistical and financial headaches that would accompany it?

"It's a great thing to throw up on the wall, but to make it all work — it'd be interesting," Brey said.

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Every so often — around this time of year, usually — someone somewhere poses the possibility of making college basketball a one-semester sport. C.M. Newton, the former Alabama basketball coach and Kentucky athletic director, has been a longtime advocate for the idea.

Once you start looking at logistics, the concept seems all but impossible to execute. What do you do with the non-conference portion of the year? How do you fit in (in many cases) 18 league games? Do you cut games to make the regular season fit in two months? Move the NCAA tournament into May and sacrifice the March window? None of the answers are appealing.

"It's not going to be a one-semester sport and fit easily, I know that," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said.

Boeheim said he couldn't see basketball becoming a one-semester sport, either, because "that would just compact everything too much. … People are going to tell you it's a good idea to shorten the season. But when they face the reality of so many games in January and February, it's not good."

There's no attractive way to push back the end of the college basketball season, either. Right after March Madness, there's Major League Baseball's opening day and The Masters — to which longtime NCAA tournament partner CBS also owns the rights.

"There's no way you can play from December 20th (if it were a one-semester sport) and still end a week before The Masters," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "I can't believe they would ever do that. They're not going to move The Masters for college basketball and we need to play longer than that."

The Masters isn't the only scheduling conflict. A couple of weeks after the NCAA tournament ends, the NBA and NHL playoffs begin. With the NCAA tournament's reliance on NBA and NHL arenas as host sites, pushing back the big dance seems impossible.

"Once you get into the playoff time period for NBA and NHL teams, I can't imagine any of those buildings offering up a weekend not knowing if they're going to be in the playoffs or not, and know if they're going to host home games," Gavitt said. "People talk about television being a challenge if the tournament moved back significantly; I think the greater challenge would be facilities."

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There's a reason these questions surrounding college basketball's regular season have been discussed by the sport's leaders for years: There's no easy fix. But if it's worth exploring one piece of this, it's the literal start of the season. Nearly everyone interviewed for this story lamented the lack of a uniform opening day.

"Ideally? I'd ask college football to take a weekend off," Gavitt said. "We start college basketball and have the whole weekend to play games on TV and do creative things. But that's not going to happen. There's too much money involved in that."

Krzyzewski suggested starting the season on Veteran's Day, and having everybody play a game while honoring locally based military. Former Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun liked the idea of starting after Thanksgiving and setting up regional tournaments at venues like Madison Square Garden and the Palestra for East coast teams.

"We have to keep being innovative," Krzyzewski said.

For now, that creativity is up to individual teams, conferences and television partners — and it's taking place midweek to avoid football. The Champions Classic draws attention during the regular season's first week, but that attention is not sustained through December. The Big Ten and ACC create buzz during their annual series, which "does very well" from a programming standpoint, Delany said. The Big Ten and Big East are partnering to create the future Gavitt Tipoff Games, an early-season series.

But not everyone is keen on playing meaningful games during a time frame teeming with football, even if they hope they can infiltrate it. The SEC and Big 12 are moving their challenge series back to late January next year in hopes of raising the profile of the event.​

"The overlap is there, and because you can't really back up the season easily, how do you create more opportunity that doesn't go head-to-head with football?" Gavitt said. "I think that's where creative thinking probably has to go."

If it can somehow lead to a buzzier beginning, perhaps college basketball's start can be as flashy as its finish.

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