Pac-16 basketball

[John Kochtoston]

Here's what I'm thinking for a format. It's a bit crazy, but so's the idea of OU in the Pac-10, so here goes:

A pre-conference season festival. Four games over four days at a central site against teams in the opposite division.

Home and home against your division.

Conference tourney OR a second festival against the other four teams in the opposite division.

Cuts way down on travel and gets one game against everyone. Means home fans will not see half the conference EVER.

Thoughts?

[Collier11]

So do you "win" the festival or does it count towards your standings for the conference title?

[John Kochtoston]

So do you "win" the festival or does it count towards your standings for the conference title?

It would count towards your conference standings. If there were two festivals, which I'm strongly leaning towards, there would be no post-season tournament. Another drawback I missed would be that this would be 22 games, which would eat a big bite into your limit. Maybe they could get a rule interpretation which would allow the conference to count one set of festival games as a post-season tournament, and not against the limit.

[John Kochtoston]

This would also allow the Pac-16 to better sell the festivals to ESPN, since they could guarantee which teams would be playing on certain nights and at certain times. You could also keep host cities happy, because, in a conference tourney, if UCLA is upset in the first round, you lose your biggest fan base. Here, they are staying all four days. You'd also be able to give festivals to more towns more often, a plus with more cities in the mix for tournament bids.

[ndpruitt03]

I think we will just go with an 18 team schedule like the Big East. I'm kinda intrigued by how even the conference will be. There doesn't seem like a dominant team like there was with Kansas for a long time but there's a lot of decent programs. OU, OSU, Texas, Texas A&M, Cal, Arizona, Washington, UCLA. UCLA has the tradition and were really good a couple years ago but they are a little down right now. They could be a team that dominates if they get that talent level back.

[soonervegas]

It won't be even once OU gets banned from post season for 3 years.