Will COVID-19 be the needle that finally bursts the sports bubble?

You misspelled Sun Belt.

 

True.
I tried to do my own realignment plan for all of Division I. (If I were czar of college sports, who would be where?) Couldn't do it. Came close but Sun Belt and CUSA were problematic.

 

Upon further review, BGSU baseball ruled safe:

Safe: Bowling Green baseball saved by donors after being cut

 

The Mullet of the Plains thinks it’s just a bad cold.

Oklahoma State linebacker tests positive for COVID-19

 

I'm going to guess the feedback he gets from the Pokes' fans will not be overwhelmingly supportive. Doesn't he know he has to stay safe in order to run money through the state of Oklahoma?

 

Another thing about conference tournaments is that the small leagues have progressively stacked the odds in favor of the top four teams anyway. The Sun Belt's format was ridiculous last year. I think everyone made it but the 10 seed was going to have to win five or six games to win the tournament, which the 1 and 2 seeds only would have to win twice. No one is going to a neutral site to watch a 10-19 Coastal Carolina team play a 12-20 Arkansas State team for the right to move on to face the 7 seed. Just cut it to four teams and be done with it.

 

CAA Adopts "Extreme Flexibility Model" For Olympic Sports Scheduling In 2020-21

So here's one model, and it makes a ton of sense. In the CAA, you had Charleston going to Boston to play Northeastern in volleyball and soccer, or Drexel heading to Elon, etc. Just take Drexel for instance. Within about an hour's drive, they can play Villanova, La Salle, St. Joe's, Temple, Penn, Delaware, Lehigh, Lafayette and Princeton in non-revenue sports. That's a lot of same-day bus trips right there.

 

I remember some Sun Belt tournaments where the host team didn't make the finals. There would be maybe 1,000 people in the stands for the championship game, with the confetti falling on the court and a bunch of empty seats, and it was just sad.

Oh, and there was also the championship celebration where sparklers were set off from the ceiling of the arena, but they appeared to malfunction and fall on some of the few people in attendance. That was fun too.

 

The Big Sky used to use the host-site model, where the No. 1 seed got the right to host the entire tournament, which at the time was six teams. Portland State won the league one year and hosted at the old Coliseum, which due to the presence of the WinterHawks is one of the coldest basketball environments you'll ever be in. I remember going with NAU for a shootaround there and my feet nearly froze off. Guys never took their jackets off during practice.

Anyway, long story short, Portland State got knocked out in the semifinals that year. The Vikings aren't a very big draw to begin with, so as you can imagine, there was zero interest in Portland for Montana-Weber State final, which was played in front of 150 or so people on national TV in a cavernous arena. Not great optics.

 

Don't the ACC and Big Ten do that as well? Don't some ACC teams get a double bye?

 

Yes in both ACC and Big Ten.

 

True. But those are 15-team fields. For a 10-team tournament to have five rounds borders on insanity.