Big Sky Conference reveals new basketball tournament format for 2023-26
-
- In this March 2021 photo, a women’s team begins to warm up in early-round action of the Big Sky Conference basketball tournament at Idaho Central Arena in Boise, Idaho.
-
- The bracket for the Big Sky Conference women’s basketball tournament for 2023-26, announced Friday, March 10, 2022.
-
- The bracket for the Big Sky Conference women’s basketball tournament for 2023-26, announced Friday, March 10, 2022.
With Southern Utah leaving the Big Sky Conference this summer, changes to the league’s basketball tournaments were necessary.
Big Sky deputy commissioner Dan Satter told the Standard-Examiner last week that the league was using the opportunity to examine the format and schedule of the tournaments, and that something could be finalized by school presidents during this week’s tournament.
Items of examination included better rewarding regular-season success, changing when the tournament ends to get better TV windows, trying to get away from having a tournament day with five total games, and seeing if it was possible to stage the men’s and women’s championship games on the same day.
Thursday, the Big Sky announced the new format for the 2023-26 tournaments and, it seems, got everything on its checklist.
Both the men’s and women’s tournaments will begin about half of a week sooner. The tournaments begin on a Saturday and end on a Wednesday, with both championship games on the final day.
The women’s title game upgrades TV coverage to ESPNU and the men’s upgrades to ESPN2. While the rest of the games remain on ESPN+, there’s an open-ended possibility of men’s semifinals getting linear TV coverage.
“Our coaches, administrators, and staff took the time and effort to reimagine what our basketball championships can look like moving forward, and we are absolutely thrilled with the result on so many fronts,” Big Sky Commissioner Tom Wistrcill said in a statement. “Enhancing the student-athlete experience, increasing our exposure to unprecedented levels, rewarding teams for competitive success during the regular season, and shifting days to provide our teams with more rest and our fans with more weekend contests are among the many positive outcomes.”
With 10 teams in each bracket, the top six seeds get byes, but not in the same format the Big Sky has used since it went to an all-comers, neutral-site format in 2016.
Seeds 7-10 play a pair of first-round games on Saturday, and winners advance to play seeds No. 1 and 2 on Sunday. Those winners get a day off while seeds 3-6 compete in a pair of games Monday. Winners from seeds 3-6 Monday turn around and face the Sunday winners in the semifinals Tuesday.
As Satter said last week, the feeling was the WAC/WCC ultra-tiered bye formats — sending seeds No. 1 and 2 directly into the semifinals — might be too extreme as league coaches hold concerns about lower-seeded teams getting game experience on the court while top seeds sit and wait.
So instead, the Big Sky gets the top seeds on the floor against some of the weakest teams, then gives them a day off. Seeds 1-2 must win three games over four days. Seeds 3-6 must still win three games in three days, and 7-10 must win four games over five days to take the tournament.
The first four days of the tournament, therefore, have four games per day between the men’s and women’s sides, with the final championship day holding the two title games. The men’s first-round start time of 9:30 a.m. is eliminated.
The 2023 tournament will take place March 4-8.
The all-comers format and neutral site were not on the table as potential changes. The men’s and women’s tournaments are contracted to remain in Boise through 2026 and the all-comers field is part of that contract with Idaho Central Arena, the city, and the Boise Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
The ability to plan ahead months, not days, in advance, and give athletes at all schools the chance to compete in the tournament are things schools and the conference have found beneficial, and there’s a pretty solid consensus around the league in support of the neutral-site championship.
The process began in the fall with a presentation to league coaches about possible new formats. From there, the league’s basketball committee, comprised of three athletic directors and two senior woman administrators, collected feedback from men’s and women’s coaches, athletic directors, and partners in Boise and at ESPN.
That committee landed on a final recommendation, which was approved by the conference’s athletic directors and forwarded to the council of presidents for a final vote.
Conference basketball schedules for 2022-23 and beyond will be announced later, the Big Sky’s statement said Thursday.
With the tournament moved up in the calendar, fans might expect the Big Sky to keep the early-December, two-game series it began scheduling last season. From there, it seems likely the remaining 16 conference games will come in the usual window (typically the weekend where the calendar turns from December to January), and the regular season will end one week earlier to allow for the new tournament schedule.
If the same format was carried from this season to next season, the 2022-23 calendar would have that first conference series likely landing on Dec. 1-3. A resumption of conference play on Dec. 29-31 would provide 9 weeks to complete the remaining 16 games. This could result in each team getting eight, two-game weekends with one week completely off, or involve a staggering of one-game weeks mixed in for each team.
With 10 teams, the “lone wolf” schedule format that shifts travel pairings to adjust for an odd number of teams is likely done. That would leave more traditional, static travel pairings: Eastern Washington and Idaho, Portland State and Sacramento State, Idaho State and Weber State, Montana and Montana State, and Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado.