20 games are all the rage.

The SBC announced a new scheduling scheme for Men's basketball starting in 2019-20. They play a 16 game divisional schedule, and then 4 games against a "pod" created from the results of those 16 games, resulting in a 20 game schedule. It's pretty complicated, and on top of that they have scheduling alliance plans and new tournament seeding. There is no way I can do it justice, so I am just going to quote the article

Quote:Men’s Basketball Non-Conference Scheduling Alliance
As a first step for improving non-conference scheduling, Sun Belt men’s basketball teams will reserve two dates in the non-conference portion of their schedule to play against peer conference opponents. Each team will have one home opponent and one away opponent from this scheduling alliance. The scheduling alliance will fully begin with the 2019-20 season, though some games may be part of 2018-19 schedules.

Men’s Basketball Conference Divisional Structure and Regular Season Schedule for 2019-20
In the next major portion of the strategic plan, the conference has adopted a scheduling format for the 2019-20 men’s basketball season – dubbed the “20-game smart schedule” – that will see the conference split into two divisions (East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, South Alabama and Troy; West: Little Rock, Arkansas State, Louisiana, ULM, UTA, and Texas State). Each team will play a 16-game schedule with five home and five away games played against divisional opponents and three home and three away games against non-divisional opponents. Based on the resulting standings of those 16 games, teams will then be placed in four pods - Pod A (#1, #2, #3), Pod B (#4, #5, #6), Pod C (#7, #8, #9) and Pod D (#10, #11, #12). Each team will play the other two pod members once home and once away for the final four games of the 20-game schedule. The regular season conference champion will be awarded based on the results of the full 20-game conference schedule.

Sun Belt women’s basketball teams will continue to play non-divisional, 18-game conference schedules.

2020 Sun Belt Men’s Basketball Tournament Seeding
At the completion of the regular season, teams will be seeded for the conference tournament based on the results within their pod range. As an example, a team in Pod A (#1, #2, #3) cannot be seeded any lower than No. 3 seed. It is possible, however, that the regular season champion – the team that earned the No. 1 position in Pod A – would not be the No. 1 seed in the tournament should that team not have the best pod record amongst the three teams in that pod.

2020 Sun Belt Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments at Smoothie King Center and Campus Sites, and “Final Four” Format
This seeding structure is just one of a number of changes for the league’s postseason starting in March 2020. The New Orleans Smoothie King Center, home of the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans, will host games of both the men’s and women’s semifinal rounds as well as both championship games.

Both the men’s and women’s tournament will see 10 total teams selected for the tournament with the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds receiving byes directly to the semifinal rounds at the Smoothie King Center. The No. 3 and No. 4 seeds will host quarterfinal games at home against winners of games from the first and second rounds. The quarterfinal winners will join the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in New Orleans for a “Final Four” experience.

2020 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament Formats

Saturday, March 7, 2020
Game 1 - No. 10 Seed at No. 7 Seed (Campus Site)
Game 2 - No. 9 Seed at No. 8 Seed (Campus Site)

Monday, March 9, 2020
Game 3 – Game 1 Winner at No. 6 Seed (Campus Site)
Game 4 – Game 2 Winner at No. 5 Seed (Campus Site)

Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Game 5 – Game 3 Winner at No. 3 Seed (Campus Site)
Game 6 – Game 4 Winner at No. 4 Seed (Campus Site)

Saturday, March 14, 2020
Game 7 – Game 5 Winner vs. No. 2 Seed (Smoothie King Center)
Game 8 – Game 6 Winner vs. No. 1 Seed (Smoothie King Center)

Sunday, March 15, 2020
Championship Game (Smoothie King Center)

Here is the full article and press release, which includes additional information about the decision making process and some info on the 2018-19 season and 2019 tournament.

Interesting. In theory, the top 2 teams in the Sun Belt could meet 4 times in the regular season, if I'm reading this correctly.

(06-30-2018 08:26 AM)Chappy Wrote:  Interesting. I theory, the top 2 teams in the Sun Belt could meet 4 times in the regular season, if I'm reading this correctly.

yup. and a fifth time in the tourney, to settle it once and for all. The kind of stuff rivalries are made of.

more incentive for doing well in the regular season, more value to each seed, more good matchups (at every level), and an RPI booster, as well.

(06-30-2018 08:51 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(06-30-2018 08:26 AM)Chappy Wrote:  Interesting. I theory, the top 2 teams in the Sun Belt could meet 4 times in the regular season, if I'm reading this correctly.

yup. and a fifth time in the tourney, to settle it once and for all. The kind of stuff rivalries are made of.

more incentive for doing well in the regular season, more value to each seed, more good matchups (at every level), and an RPI booster, as well.

But...guaranteed losses. Which is a bigger issue for RPI.

(06-30-2018 08:59 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  

(06-30-2018 08:51 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(06-30-2018 08:26 AM)Chappy Wrote:  Interesting. I theory, the top 2 teams in the Sun Belt could meet 4 times in the regular season, if I'm reading this correctly.

yup. and a fifth time in the tourney, to settle it once and for all. The kind of stuff rivalries are made of.

more incentive for doing well in the regular season, more value to each seed, more good matchups (at every level), and an RPI booster, as well.

But...guaranteed losses. Which is a bigger issue for RPI.

either way, the NCAA at-large berth for conferences not in the top 6-8 is being phased out.

Sun Belt’s non-con challenge is with CUSA & Horizon. 1 H, 1 A.

All these scheduling hooligans were orchestrated by Mark Adams, who is becoming a mid major legend. He is reinventing college basketball and will likely have books written about him someday.

When people do things like "smart" schedules and "smart" growth, its really just people too stupid to think of a simple way of doing things.
This isn't going to help them get an at large bid. It will hurt their chances by having the top teams beat each other too much.

(06-30-2018 08:26 AM)Chappy Wrote:  Interesting. In theory, the top 2 teams in the Sun Belt could meet 4 times in the regular season, if I'm reading this correctly.

Yes as well as the bottom 2.

Probability is everyone will play at least one team four times and could play two teams four times with a chance to play someone five times once the conference tournament rolls around.

(06-30-2018 08:51 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(06-30-2018 08:26 AM)Chappy Wrote:  Interesting. I theory, the top 2 teams in the Sun Belt could meet 4 times in the regular season, if I'm reading this correctly.

yup. and a fifth time in the tourney, to settle it once and for all. The kind of stuff rivalries are made of.

more incentive for doing well in the regular season, more value to each seed, more good matchups (at every level), and an RPI booster, as well.

potentially eight times if they reached the finals of the CBI and played all three games of it.

(06-30-2018 10:57 AM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(06-30-2018 08:51 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(06-30-2018 08:26 AM)Chappy Wrote:  Interesting. I theory, the top 2 teams in the Sun Belt could meet 4 times in the regular season, if I'm reading this correctly.

yup. and a fifth time in the tourney, to settle it once and for all. The kind of stuff rivalries are made of.

more incentive for doing well in the regular season, more value to each seed, more good matchups (at every level), and an RPI booster, as well.

potentially eight times if they reached the finals of the CBI and played all three games of it.

#Epic

I don't see this as helping the Sun Belt at all. Their RPI's aren't high enough. So that if, for example, #3 beats #1 in the pod system, it still isn't helping them get an at large bid. The only thing it does is make it so their #1 team has a lower RPI, if they knock each other off in the Pod system.

This system would work great for a conference that has multiple top 50 RPI teams. The Sun Belt doesn't. Last year they had one top 100 RPI team, and over half the conference was below 200. A 120 RPI team beating a 100 RPI team in the pod system isn't going to help get an at large bid.

Now if they just wanted to give the higher teams a straight shot into the conf. tournament, and thereby a greater chance at the conference auto bid, then they succeeded wildly.

(06-30-2018 12:29 PM)BullsFanInTX Wrote:  I don't see this as helping the Sun Belt at all. Their RPI's aren't high enough. So that if, for example, #3 beats #1 in the pod system, it still isn't helping them get an at large bid. The only thing it does is make it so their #1 team has a lower RPI, if they knock each other off in the Pod system.

This system would work great for a conference that has multiple top 50 RPI teams. The Sun Belt doesn't. Last year they had one top 100 RPI team, and over half the conference was below 200. A 120 RPI team beating a 100 RPI team in the pod system isn't going to help get an at large bid.

Now if they just wanted to give the higher teams a straight shot into the conf. tournament, and thereby a greater chance at the conference auto bid, then they succeeded wildly.

They may not get an at-large without a lot going right for them, but it potentially helps their champion's NCAA seed and also improves their chances at an NIT at-large bid.

BullsFanInTX,

Good analysis, I pretty much agree. CUSA might be a better conference to try this with as their top three teams tend to be borderline on the RPI to be at-large (don't know how one does that with 14), or perhaps the American which also tends to have three - but they are likely to average 2.5 in anyway.

Unrelated, but looking around at other conferences, it looks like the Pac-12 will go to 20 (general agreement), but likely after the end of the 10 year schedule cycle, which would be starting 2021-22 which almost lines up with the next media contracts (2023-24) that will see an overhaul of the P12N. Definitely a trend.

As a fan of a team in the Sun Belt and of the league as a whole, I have mixed thoughts on this. I would hope that the divisions are balanced each year in terms of which teams are good. This past season in baseball the top 4 teams were in the East division. If that happens in basketball then teams 5 and 6 in that division are undoubtedly going to be in the bottom pod just because they would play the top 4 teams twice (as opposed to just once for the Western division teams). But if the 4 best teams are in the same division then it’s probable the opposite division leaders can have a better record since they’re playing weaker competition more frequently while the best 4 are beating up on each other. What if the “best records” have poorer RPIs and the teams that beat up on each other have much better RPIs? That’s my concern for this model. But for the sake of the Sun Belt, I’m going to hope for competitive balance among the two divisions. I think for now we will have that, but you never know when that could change.

I don't think there is high expectation that it will produce at-large berths but more likely will provide a chance to move up a seed or two and face a first round opponent of more similar ability.

(06-30-2018 05:36 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  I don't think there is high expectation that it will produce at-large berths but more likely will provide a chance to move up a seed or two and face a first round opponent of more similar ability.

If their goal is to make sure the highest seeds get an easy path to the auto bid, then this is a really good plan. You're right, it could also help improve a seed line.

(06-30-2018 12:52 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  BullsFanInTX,

Good analysis, I pretty much agree. CUSA might be a better conference to try this with as their top three teams tend to be borderline on the RPI to be at-large (don't know how one does that with 14), or perhaps the American which also tends to have three - but they are likely to average 2.5 in anyway.

Unrelated, but looking around at other conferences, it looks like the Pac-12 will go to 20 (general agreement), but likely after the end of the 10 year schedule cycle, which would be starting 2021-22 which almost lines up with the next media contracts (2023-24) that will see an overhaul of the P12N. Definitely a trend.

CUSA Starts the same system (Or a version of it) this year. They are playing a 14 game regular season plus something like 5 team pods where you play everyone once each.

(06-30-2018 09:15 AM)bullet Wrote:  When people do things like "smart" schedules and "smart" growth, its really just people too stupid to think of a simple way of doing things.
This isn't going to help them get an at large bid. It will hurt their chances by having the top teams beat each other too much.

(06-30-2018 12:29 PM)BullsFanInTX Wrote:  I don't see this as helping the Sun Belt at all. Their RPI's aren't high enough. So that if, for example, #3 beats #1 in the pod system, it still isn't helping them get an at large bid. The only thing it does is make it so their #1 team has a lower RPI, if they knock each other off in the Pod system.

This system would work great for a conference that has multiple top 50 RPI teams. The Sun Belt doesn't. Last year they had one top 100 RPI team, and over half the conference was below 200. A 120 RPI team beating a 100 RPI team in the pod system isn't going to help get an at large bid.

Now if they just wanted to give the higher teams a straight shot into the conf. tournament, and thereby a greater chance at the conference auto bid, then they succeeded wildly.

This seems to be the opinion of a great many SB school fans.