Running 2023-24 NCAA Basketball Thread

One-and-one’s are no hill I want to die on. I’d much rather plow the hill out of existence. More game action is preferable to bonus free throws of any sort.

As for why the men’s game hasn’t gone to quarters? It’s because they need to find a way to replace the lost media timeout.

 

I hate the idea of halves in college basketball. I like the differentiation.

 

I hate the possession arrow. You make a good defensive play, the whistle blows. And your opponent still gets the ball because an arrow says they do.

If there’s a tie-up, do an actual jump ball.

 

Some nights the bus wouldn't even stop, there were just too many kids.

 

I never realized how much I hated late starts until I started my current gig and went from getting up at 9 or 10 a.m. to getting up at 6 or 7 most mornings. The 9:20 start is just brutal. I get it, the entire world can't revolve around the Eastern time zone, but nearly 50 percent of the country resides in that time zone, compared to 23 percent combined for the Mountain and Pacific. Combine that with the world going away from the traditional 9-5 work structure, and the argument that the game can't start until the West Coast folks are home from work and settled in loses a lot of steam.

8 p.m. is the perfect sweet spot. If I don't have a dog in the fight, as was the case on Monday, I'm not wrecking my entire next day to stay up to watch. It's enough of a challenge for me to follow my NBA team (Suns) in the playoffs. I can't bring myself to do it for games I don't really care about.

As for on-site start times, that horse has left the barn and isn't coming back. We're starting games (local time to site) at 10 a.m. Mountain Time and 10 p.m. Eastern Time for TV purposes. We're playing college football at 9 a.m. in San Diego to accommodate TV.

I'm super happy for the growth of the women's game, and I think it's sustainable. But if you don't think that network TV on a Sunday afternoon vs. cable TV late night on a work/school night isn't a factor in the ratings, you're crazy.

 

Is Purdue the second-smallest Big 10 school? That sounds right but I’m too lazy to fact check in the last moments before starting work. Obviously they have a spillover fan base in state, but even 40 percent of Indiana isn’t moving the needle nationally.

 

Men's ratings were up but one factor to consider in why they were not even better is the eclipse. Folks probably travelling that might have been tuned in.

Not saying it was a big factor but it might have had some effect.

 

That's not always fair, either.

Gabbie Marshall makes a great defensive play to tie up Kamilla Cardoso, and SC wins the tip without Cardoso even having to jump.

 

That sounds right — Northwestern is the smallest, in both enrollment and interest in sports.

 

Fun to see women's hoops bring in more fans, though part of me feels like the idiots who used to get mad when their favorite band got too popular.

Some of us grew up hearing about Denise Long's stats and tuning in each year to the Iowa girls 6-on-6 state tourney with the tuxedo'd dudes sweeping the floor in front of 15,000 people. We drove two hours in an ice storm in 1987 to watch a junior college women's game in front of 25 people. We can recite the stats of the NDSU and UND D2 dynasties of yesteryear. We emulated Sheryl Swoopes' midrange game. We had the SI with Mark Price, Bruce Dalrymple and Cheryl Miller hanging in our bedroom.

Respective start times: I was driving cross-country so missed the women's game but liked the afternoon tip and also cursed the late start for the men. Though a buddy was disappointed in both. I texted him Monday about meeting up at a bar to watch and he said it was too late for him, being that he's a teacher who gets up early and has little kids. But he was also mad about the women's start time because his daughter had softball practice during the afternoon and couldn't watch it.

Halves/quarters: I go back and forth. I've liked the college game switching to quarters but I've also liked Minnesota high school going to 18-minute halves instead of 8-minute quarters. For each level, the change just seems to work.

And was so happy when the women were allowed to advance the ball and think it's still so dumb the men don't (I know we've had this argument on here before so I won't write hundreds more words again on it; the circle of life on SJ). Yeah, it's arbitrary but so is pretty much every other rule. The college game stopped running the clock with under a minute to go on made baskets, breaking tradition. The game was fine. We'd get so many more amazing moments in the final three seconds of games if they too could advance.

It's fun looking through these rules changes over the decades and I'm sure with a lot of these folks were really mad when they were enacted but now it seems ludicrous there was ever any debate.

NCAA Basketball Rule Change History

Imagine the world if this one hadn't been put into place. Danny Hurley just staring at his players for 60 seconds.

And I never knew about this one until watching some old film and was baffled by the alignment on free throws.

 

Is it too late to add "What start time would you prefer for the NCAA men's championship?" to the November ballot?

 

Hey, it was a big deal to bump "Avengers: Endgame" from its usual 9 p.m. Monday time slot for the sportsball!