An idea to play a 16-team tournament in Atlanta received mixed interest from the selection committeeGETTY IMAGES
NCAA Tournament organizers late last week "scrambled to devise a plan for a 16-team event to salvage the postseason in one long weekend," as it "became apparent the NCAA basketball tournaments could not be held" as originally planned, according to Ralph Russo of the AP. NCAA Senior VP/Basketball Dan Gavitt said that he "started to consider ways of condensing the tournament Wednesday night" after the NBA suspended its season, before the "reality set in that even a shortened tournament could not be pulled off without putting people at risk." On Thursday morning, Gavitt presented the idea to the men’s selection committee, saying that the "hope was to play games starting March 26 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta." He added that the first three rounds "would have been played from March 26-28, with a championship game on March 30." Gavitt said that the idea "got 'mixed interest' from the committee." NCAA President Mark Emmert said that playing the tournament later "also wasn’t feasible." Emmert: “If you start a tournament six weeks from now a bunch of our students [are] seniors and will have moved on. And when you looked at the projections of where the virus was going to be in six weeks it looks worse, not better.” Emmert said the NBA halting its season was an "important data point that triggered a lot more conversations and phone calls among my leadership team." But he "wouldn’t describe the NBA’s decision as a pivot point." Emmert: "It was one piece of the puzzle" (AP, 3/13).
LAST-DITCH EFFORT: CBSSPORTS.com's Matt Norlander wrote the 16-team plan was "informal and never broached with CBS or Turner executives because it never reached a point where it was necessary due to the selection committee shooting down the proposition." Gavitt said that the plan made sense as a "last-ditch effort." Gavitt: "We thought this is maybe ... a way we can do this in a very controlled way to safeguard the health of these players. One site, small travel party, charters, buses, not a lot of exposure to anybody, get them in, get them safe, play the games and determine a national champion among 16 teams. ... The committee was uneasy when we presented it" (CBSSPORTS.com, 3/13).
IT'S ALL ACADEMIC NOW: Penn State AD Sandy Barbour said that she "hoped the Selection Committee would still reveal a bracket" for the now-scuttled tourney. PSU men's basketball had been expected to earn a bid for the first time since '11, and Barbour indicated that she "thought the coaches and players deserved to know what their fate would have been." Appearing on ESPN Radio 1450 State College, she said, "This is one of those ways in which we help our student-athletes through this. But the response that I got was that they thought through it and there were just too many complications" (247SPORTS.com, 3/13).
SQUANDERED SAFETY NET: USA TODAY's Steve Berkowitz noted the NCAA "did have the foresight to begin planning for an unknown catastrophic event that would threaten its biggest and most lucrative event." By '14, the organization had accumulated a nearly $400M "cushion as a hedge against a massive loss of revenue from the tournament." However, at the "direction of its governing board of college presidents, the NCAA distributed that money to schools to help them with increasing costs and spent it on their behalf in other ways," including a $208.7M legal settlement over cost of attendance (USA TODAY, 3/14).
INSIDE THE AAC DECISION: AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco discussed the hours leading up to the cancellation of his conference's tournament on Thursday, saying, “It seemed like a shoe was dropping every few hours." He added, "The NBA situation was certainly a wake-up call. We really had to think if we wanted to put our kids at risk." In Orlando, Matt Murschel noted ADs from several schools were "already on hand for a committee meeting later that morning," but they were then being "included in a discussion about whether to proceed with the tournament." At that point, Aresco "presented the idea of canceling the tournament." He said that "no one disagreed" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 3/15). UConn AD David Benedict, whose school plans to leave the AAC for a return to the Big East in June, said, "I don’t feel like I was being isolated. But for a while, I was concerned. We have not been able to participate in American Athletic meetings and business because that’s what they decided. ... It added a different level of anxiety to this because I wasn’t sure one way or the other if there was communication going on and I just wasn’t being included, or if there was nothing going on" (HARTFORD COURANT, 3/15).
