CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on August 11, 2020, 04:41:46 PM
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I haven't watched but from what I hear the NBA is having success playing in a bubble. It is sounding like the NFL may follow suit this fall.
Realistically, there are several problems with the "playing in a bubble" model for CFB including:
- FB rosters are substantially larger than BB rosters and on top of that college rosters are larger than pro rosters anyway. NBA teams are allowed 15 players, NFL teams are allowed 53, CFB teams have 85 on scholarship plus dozens of walk-ons and whatnot. It is a HUMONGOUS number of people to try to keep on lockdown.
- College players are at least supposed to be "Student Athletes". Playing their sport isn't the only thing they are supposed to be doing.
- For a regular season we are talking something like 14+ weeks to keep this lockdown in effect.
I was thinking about it and it seems to me that these problems are substantially reduced for CBB's post-season:
- NCAABB rosters are MUCH smaller than NCAAFB rosters.
- If you are only doing the post-season it is three weekends: 1) the 'round of 64' and the 'round of 32'; 2) the S16 and the E8; 3) the F4. Also, it is only three weekends for the four teams that make it to the final four. For another 12 teams (that make the S16 but not the F4) it is two weekends and for the other 48 (or 52) it is just one weekend. The impact of that on students would be minimal, not much worse than the normal tournament and probably less than a normal season.
- You could keep the lock-down in effect for two weeks before then the one, two, or three weeks of the tournament.
I'm thinking ratings would be at an all-time high. How starved for college sports are we?
Side idea:
I'd temporarily expand the tournament for this year due to bubble teams not having the opportunity to play their way in in their conference tournaments. Thus, I'd implement my long-time suggestion and go to 80 teams for this year only, 20 in a region and expand it to four weekends:
Weekend #1 (four cities, one arena in each, four games in each city):
- 13 v 20
- 14 v 19
- 15 v 18
- 16 v 17
That gets you down to 64 teams, then:
Weekend #2 (Eight cities like normal, one arena in each city, two pods in each arena, three games in each pod/six games in each arena):
#1 seed pod:
- #1 v 16/17
- #8 v #9
- winners play
#2 seed pod:
- #2 v 15/18
- #7 v #10
- winners play
#3 seed pod:
- #3 v 14/19
- #6 v #11
- winners play
#4 seed pod:
- #4 v 13/20
- #5 v #12
- winners play
That gets you down to 16 teams, then:
Weekend #3 (Four cities like normal, one arena in each city, three games in each arena):
- #1/8/9/16/17 v #4/5/12/13/20
- #2/7/10/15/18 v #3/6/11/14/19
- winners play
That gets you down to four teams, then:
Weekend #4 (One city, one arena, three games):
- The usual F4 set-up, two games Saturday, CG on Monday
To maintain the lock-down I'd put the NCAA in charge of enforcing it under penalty of forfeiture for the entire team of any player who fails to comply.
That would give you 79 CBB games:
- 16 games the first weekend
- 48 games the second weekend
- 12 games the third weekend
- 3 games the fourth weekend
Why not?
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I said the same, except I think you have to switch up what we normally have.
I think you have to forget the play ins, and just go with 64. Then have 8 bubbles of 8. The 8 winners advance to an Elite 8 bubble to determine the champ.
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How do you handle rosters?
Obviously Purdue was likely on the wrong side of the bubble, but I'll use them as an example. Significant contributors Evan Boudreaux and Jahaad Proctor, having exhausted their eligibility, aren't on campus for next season. Boudreaux, by playing in The Basketball Tournament, is now a "professional". Significant contributors Matt Haarms and Nojel Eastern have transferred to other schools. And I don't know what the team would do without Tommy Luce, who graduated.
Then you have new players who will be off redshirt for the 20-21 season, plus the incoming freshmen.
If somehow they decided to include Purdue in the field, how do you deal with the fact that we'd have all this roster turnover?
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I mean using last year's rosters. I think you can waive the amateur portion for this. And it's not like most guys can progress to the NBA yet. You'll have guys opt out. And yes, the guys who transferred out, probably won't be welcomed back.
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Why not?
Because OMG, COVID!
**insert sky falling emoticon**
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This woulda been a nice plan for before school restarted. Mid-summer type thing.
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Conference champions only? I'm selfish like that.
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There's probably Title IX implications that would require w basketball to also have a tournament.
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How do you handle rosters?
Obviously Purdue was likely on the wrong side of the bubble, but I'll use them as an example. Significant contributors Evan Boudreaux and Jahaad Proctor, having exhausted their eligibility, aren't on campus for next season. Boudreaux, by playing in The Basketball Tournament, is now a "professional". Significant contributors Matt Haarms and Nojel Eastern have transferred to other schools. And I don't know what the team would do without Tommy Luce, who graduated.
Then you have new players who will be off redshirt for the 20-21 season, plus the incoming freshmen.
If somehow they decided to include Purdue in the field, how do you deal with the fact that we'd have all this roster turnover?
I mean using last year's rosters. I think you can waive the amateur portion for this. And it's not like most guys can progress to the NBA yet. You'll have guys opt out. And yes, the guys who transferred out, probably won't be welcomed back.
I roughly agree with ELA but if it were up to me I'd probably use VERY loose rules and maybe have some kind of super-committee with the authority to review case-by-case questions that come up.
I think I'd waive the amateur rule like ELA said because the guys who were set to graduate or leave didn't know there would be a tournament in the fall so it isn't their fault that they became professionals in the interim. I'd probably also allow this year's freshman to play. That is a tougher call. On one hand some schools are going to need them to fill out their rosters but on the other hand that could completely change some teams.
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This woulda been a nice plan for before school restarted. Mid-summer type thing.
It probably would have been better then but I think at that time they expected CFB to be getting ready to start not getting ready to be cancelled.
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Conference champions only? I'm selfish like that.
Remember that the NCAA uses the Conference Tournaments to determine Conference Champions and nobody finished their Conference Tournament so they couldn't do that unless you added another weekend and a whole bunch more teams and a LOT more COVID transmission risk.
I realize that you obviously meant regular season Champions but there will be a lot of ties and there isn't an established rule to break them. In the B1G you had a three-way tie between UW, UMD, and MSU. It probably is NOT coincidental that you favor Champions only and YOUR team won the tiebreraker. That seems a bit off to me to take what is usually a nearly meaningless tiebreaker that just determines which teams get the #1, #2, and #3 seeds and make it into an end-all, be-all of which team gets the ONLY bid in the Tournament.
Aside from that my biggest motivation here is to give the fans something current to watch so I'd lean toward MORE rather than LESS games. That is why I want it expanded to 80 teams (79 games) rather than contracted to 64 teams (63 games) in @ELA (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=55) 's model of 68 teams (67 games) in the usual tournament. I definitely wouldn't want to contract it even further to just the champions.
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I roughly agree with ELA but if it were up to me I'd probably use VERY loose rules and maybe have some kind of super-committee with the authority to review case-by-case questions that come up.
On second thought I wouldn't need a super-committee. I'd just make it a simple rule:
"Any player who was eligible to play for your team in the 2019-2020 season or who is eligible to play for your team for the 2020-2021 season is eligible to play for your team for this extremely late 2020 Tournament."
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Remember that the NCAA uses the Conference Tournaments to determine Conference Champions and nobody finished their Conference Tournament so they couldn't do that unless you added another weekend and a whole bunch more teams and a LOT more COVID transmission risk.
I realize that you obviously meant regular season Champions but there will be a lot of ties and there isn't an established rule to break them. In the B1G you had a three-way tie between UW, UMD, and MSU. It probably is NOT coincidental that you favor Champions only and YOUR team won the tiebreraker. That seems a bit off to me to take what is usually a nearly meaningless tiebreaker that just determines which teams get the #1, #2, and #3 seeds and make it into an end-all, be-all of which team gets the ONLY bid in the Tournament.
Aside from that my biggest motivation here is to give the fans something current to watch so I'd lean toward MORE rather than LESS games. That is why I want it expanded to 80 teams (79 games) rather than contracted to 64 teams (63 games) in @ELA (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=55) 's model of 68 teams (67 games) in the usual tournament. I definitely wouldn't want to contract it even further to just the champions.
It was just a flippant comment. I should have put a smiley by it.
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On second thought I wouldn't need a super-committee. I'd just make it a simple rule:
"Any player who was eligible to play for your team in the 2019-2020 season or who is eligible to play for your team for the 2020-2021 season is eligible to play for your team for this extremely late 2020 Tournament."
I don't love that.
I think the plan for now is to have a 2021 tournament. Incoming freshmen are more than welcome to play there. This would simply be the very delayed 2020 tournament
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I don't love that.
I think the plan for now is to have a 2021 tournament. Incoming freshmen are more than welcome to play there. This would simply be the very delayed 2020 tournament
I get that, but part of my concern is that if you had a bunch of transfers or whatever you might not have enough guys to put a team on the court, what then?
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On second thought I wouldn't need a super-committee. I'd just make it a simple rule:
"Any player who was eligible to play for your team in the 2019-2020 season or who is eligible to play for your team for the 2020-2021 season is eligible to play for your team for this extremely late 2020 Tournament."
I'm in favor of that rule given that some players can't/won't return to their team. As mentioned, even if Purdue could get Boudreaux and Proctor to agree to come back and play, no way that Haarms or Eastern will leave the teams they transferred to in order to come back.
That would leave Purdue completely shorthanded and they might need the freshmen.
The problem, of course, is that teams with turnover who spent an entire season trying to build chemistry aren't even remotely the same team they were when the season ended.
The other problem is what happens if a team has to face one of those transfers that just left, without a full offseason and season to reduce the sting of that player leaving?
I don't love that.
I think the plan for now is to have a 2021 tournament. Incoming freshmen are more than welcome to play there. This would simply be the very delayed 2020 tournament
Then what you're going to see is some teams--teams that would normally have participated--just walking away from the extremely delayed 2020 tournament. Especially some of those 1-bid leagues who probably don't have the resources or interest to participate this late.
Heck, as a Purdue fan, I should love that. It might open up slots for a team like Purdue who was likely on the wrong side of the bubble.
If Purdue can't get Boudreaux and Proctor back, and if they were allowed to play their redshirts without burning a year of eligibility, they'd only have 8 scholarship players, 3 of which (Gillis/Newman as RS, Dowuona who only played sparingly) were not regular contributors. If you make it such that redshirts will burn their shirts if they play, now you're down to a 6-man roster.
My guess is that Purdue would turn down an invitation to that tournament. Why even show up if you don't have a roster that can likely even complete a 40 minute game, much less be competitive?
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I get that, but part of my concern is that if you had a bunch of transfers or whatever you might not have enough guys to put a team on the court, what then?
Exactly. And if you allow the incoming freshmen, players who redshirted in 2019-20, etc, it actually might be an incentive for teams to participate because it gives them real game action to prepare for the 2020-21 season.
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Brevin Pritzl would probably come back to Wisconsin for this, although he does have a contract in Serbia.
I'm sure the NCAA would deem Micah Potter ineligible. It's what they do.