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What’s the deal with Stankovic? Are we assuming he is going to develop under Dustin? What the thinking on him and how he fits into next year?

I think it was @clarkwgriswold that once called the winner of the NIT, the best of the losers. That stuck with me, because it’s so true. I don’t think the NIT could ever draw significant attention during the NCAAT. Personal and institutional pride gets in the way of everyone trying their hardest. But if I were to try, I would avoid bragging rights or pride altogether. Hold the event at a unique or special location and give financial reward for every game you advance. The money could go to the players or in the team’s collective. I remember Michigan State once played North Carolina on an aircraft carrier. That was must see TV. And I always liked the Maui Invitational. Something like that with only 16 teams could draw some interest for fans, players and the general public.

Degrees from Harvard and Yale? Dude basically just went to the same school

The network is basically only reruns of impractical jokers for 361 days of the year. I'd rather have a strong NIT with those big schools, and hopefully the big fanbases would still watch. Just like bowl games, the Europa League, etc. Once teams decide they are "too good" for a level of competition it ruins the whole system

This year there was something like 8 million total if you add up viewership for those 4 games with the Miami/SMU drawing the largest audience of 2.5 million. How many people do you think tune into TrueTV on a Tuesday or Wednesday night if those college basketball games weren't being played? 10s of thousands maybe? That would mean putting a random play-in game adds ~2 million more viewers than whatever they were otherwise going to air. I don't disagree that an expanded tournament does more damage than good for mid-majors and am personally not for it. That said, it's obvious live sports, even ones that might not be appealing to most, drive a much larger viewing audience than random re-runs or whatever else True TV runs. TBH I only ever watch that station for March Madness. For that reason an expanded tournament has value to a CBS, Netflix, Amazon, or whoever else bids for the next media contract.

The bubble this year was so bad, if this year they expanded with this criteria, the last spot in relative to kenpom would be between 18-14 Indiana, and 16-16 Baylor. This year was the first time I have ever really watched a first four game with Miami. I would say most people don't watch those games and doubling that amount so we can see more games potentially like UVA vs Colorado State a couple years ago isn't going to make march madness more popular. It would also be a shame to have 4 conference tournament champions just missing out on the round of 64 each year. It would also put even more pressure on those teams in the low ranking conferences to switch conferences. Its a slippery slope to encourage more conference realignment at all levels. Who would've thought that college basketball would be more like the premier league before college soccer

Yep, MLB should have figured out they really messed up their schedule when pitchers started to use pine tar on their fingers. Not for competitive advantage, but just so they could get any kind of action on the ball.

MLB will never get it. Too much money involved for them to cut back. I'm always amused when during the wild card or first round someone plays an "on this date" clip from something that happened in the World Series years ago.

You could take 3 weeks off the front and back ends of the MLB season and I wouldn’t miss a second of it. Greed has them starting and ending the season in miserable cold weather.

That "ceiling" is the result of today's NCAA basketball circus, not the program. The days of Cinderella in the tournament are over. Sure, you'll get an occasional first round upset or a brief run but it's all about NIL and transfers now making it much tougher on the non "power" schools.

I think we have to remember that these guys are still developing physically throughout their college careers. The adjustment from high school to college is already challenging enough for most. Add too much to their plate and I fear you will see a lot more injuries.

I agree that the landscape has changed a great deal and winning in the NCAA has become far more difficult for the have-nots. But I’m grateful Groce & Company with the support of Bud Wentz doesn’t share your opinion on there being a ceiling for Akron. Keep swinging guys!!

Expanding the tournament doesn't alter the calendar. Just instead of playing 2 Dayton games on Tuesday and another 2 on Wednesday they play 4-6 each day. What you initially proposed was shifting the schedule back multiple weeks. That would make it so earlier rounds would be in competition with the masters and later rounds would be in competition with events like the NBA playoffs or NFL draft. Conference tournaments and March Madness are the only games that 75% of college basketball fans even care about. I talked to fans sitting near me at Rocket Mortgage arena who claimed to be Akron fans, but they knew very little about the team and didn't go to a game at the JAR all season. If you want more regular season games that is still achievable. There are gaps in the regular season that teams don't play for 10+ days. Also, teams could play more than 2 games a week some weeks. I just don't think adding more regular season weeks is suddenly going to make people care more about the regular season. Most just care about the excitement of the single elimination tournaments and/or their office pool brackets. Without it they could care less.

Pretty much. They won't underachieve, but it's clear winning Saturday in Cleveland is the ceiling.

We'll get some good replacement players but they won't be NCAAT winning players because ceiling.

If CBB is worried about competing against The Masters, things are worse than I think. I think last year had the most Sunday viewers for The Masters ever. It was still several million viewers less than the final four. People watch The Masters because there is nothing else on TV and there will always be a certain number of people who like trust fund guys chase a ball around. Also, the final four isn't even played on Sunday. If CBB wants to expand the field, fine. They should get rid of conference tournaments if they do that. It would make the regular season more meaningful. Given players are professionals now, I don't think scheduling a 40+ game season would be unreasonable. 40 games is slightly less than half of NBA games. College football plays over half the number of NFL games. The expanded number of games would help weed out the field and give more time for the cream to rise to the top.

Let's assume Brisco leaves but everyone else returns, that gives you three rosters spots to bring in talent. My dream offseason brings in three impact players: 1) Center/post 2) Stretch 4 3) Scoring guard C-Transfer/Barre F-Transfer/Stankovic/MMK W-Mahaffey/Henderson/Halligan G-Transfer/Head G-Young/Perkins

I have the hottest of takes but we win if that goes in. We just got them in foul trouble and one big fouled out. If we cut it to one instead of missing and going down 7 immediately, we can pound inside more and take advantage of the foul trouble. Instead we're chasing and needing 3s. We had our chances yesterday

I thought I saw Texas Tech was something like 28th in 3-pt defense coming into the game. They did a really great job of contesting and running us off the line. If you eliminate the broken plays where we got a look off transition or offensive rebound before defense could get set, I think only Lyles and Evan were the ones consistently getting open looks. Evan wisely passed up most those looks. That was probably by design as Texas Tech could live with either shooting them. Scott hit some, but given his logo range it becomes a bit more challenging to limit him.

Tavari had 4 points on 2-10 shooting. I don't think we should judge the value of any of these players based on yesterday alone.

One thing to consider is John continues to have the chance to coach his son at UA - now what, only two years away from celebrating senior night with him at UA which you have to think would be incredibly meaningful. Another son in high school here. A lot of factors behind decision like this. Not to mention, his name could be floated around, certainly he’s established his reputation as one of the best mid-major coaches in the country, but competition for all of these jobs is fierce out there, no guarantee he gets any opportunity to leave.

Bowen is a good kid and a great shooter but he's pretty much one dimensional. To his credit he was better on defense this year. If he comes set and square to the basket he's deadly on his shot, but teams have figured him out to some extent and set up their defense so that he seldom gets loose.

On the big stage, Hardman played 21 minutes and went 0-2 with 1 rebound and 0 assists.

As @Illini Zip said it's not about getting more mid or low majors in. It's about getting more .500 P4 teams in like Auburn. It would be a similar setup to now. Just instead of bottom 4 conference winners competing for 2 spots it would be bottom 8 conference champions competing for 4. The same with the last 4 in for at-larges would become the last 8. This setup slide anyone below the bubble line 1 seed down since fewer low majors would make it to the round of 64.

Those 1 vs. 19 and 2 vs. 18 seed games would be glorious.