| | By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
Conference commissioners recommended in June to eliminate exempted non-conference basketball tournaments like the Maui Invitational and the Preseason NIT, but the group doesn't have legislative power to enforce the proposal.
If the 16-team Preseason NIT is eliminated, then the funds would dry up for the 32-team Postseason NIT, according to NIT executive director Jack Powers.
"If we don't have the Preseason NIT, then we don't have the Postseason NIT," Powers said. "That would be a shame with all the good we have done for college basketball."
Powers said he has teams lining up to play in the Preseason NIT through 2007, but schools are concerned about the mood toward elimination. But he's convinced the schools and athletic directors don't understand the ramifications. Lose the exempted events and the Preseason NIT and 32 teams could be cut out of a postseason tournament.
"We take care of the low majors, mid majors and high majors in both tournaments," Powers said. "We take care of a lot of teams who don't make the NCAA Tournament. There's no question if this happens, it hurts college basketball."
The proposal is at the suggestion stage. But it has scared the exempted tournaments enough that they have sought legal counsel. For the proposal to get pushed into legislation, a conference must come forward and recommend the proposal. Until then, the volatile issue will rest in the soon-to-be formed basketball issues committee chaired by Syracuse chancellor Kenneth Shaw.
The issues committee is being formed mainly to address summer recruiting but college basketball topics like exempted events are expected to be on the agenda. The committee will likely include coaches and athletic directors, too.
Exempted events don't count against a team's overall 27 regular-season games, which means three games in Maui can be added to a team's schedule. Take away the exemption and high-profile teams aren't likely to go to Maui when they could make more money with a home game. Eliminate the events and mid-major teams will lose a chance to play quality non-conference games. The NCAA helped open the fields of the tournaments by enacting a rule that limits teams to two appearances every four years.
One commissioner, who wished to remain anonymous, said the tenor of the CCA meeting June 20 in Park City, Utah, centered on the need for conferences to be in the business of selling and making money off non-conference games. The commissioner said some commissioners were upset that other people were profiting from some of the best matchups of the season.
"But at the end of the day when it comes time to voting, I don't believe a conference will stand up and support to get rid of the games," said one commissioner, who didn't want to use his name either. "No coach will be in favor of this."
Elimination of exempted events could reach the NCAA's management council in October if the basketball issues committee moved quickly. The council would then have to forward a recommendation to the NCAA's Board of Directors, with 2002 the earliest it could be put into NCAA law.
The management council sent shock waves through the exempted tournaments last Monday when they met in Boston to address football exemptions. The management council adopted legislation that eliminates all Division I preseason exempted football games after 2002. But the council added that teams do have the chance to play 12 games.
The council went on to say it was proposing legislation to eliminate exempted contests in other sports, claiming that if adopted, exemptions wouldn't be granted for schools or tournaments that entered into contracts after July 25, 2000.
If the council were to adopt legislation eliminating exempted basketball events, they could put in a rule adding more games, possibly to 30, for Division I teams.
But that poses another set of problems. The majority of teams struggle to schedule and would have a harder time trying to add two more games. Losing out on the chance to play an in exempted event would make it difficult for borderline tournament teams to schedule games that enhance their power rating.
Last year, Iowa and Tulsa were two teams that benefited from exempted events.
The Hawkeyes beat Connecticut in the first round of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic in New York before losing to Stanford in the final. Steve Alford's Hawkeye program got a boost from the win that helped him in recruiting one of the top 25 classes. The tournament got a major upset to go along with $500,000 raised for the American Cancer Society.
"You end up playing a mini NCAA Tournament," Alford said. "I'm in favor of it. We wouldn't play Connecticut otherwise. We're certainly not going to go there and they wouldn't come here. These tournaments pair up great teams."
But Alford experienced the exempted tournaments as a head coach at a mid-major school. When he was at Southwest Missouri State in 1996, Alford's Bears played and beat Fresno State and Bowling Green before playing Cincinnati in the final of the Puerto Rico Classic. The games helped the Bears power rating that season, even though they didn't get into the NCAA Tournament.
Last season, Tulsa beat Tennessee in Puerto Rico to propel the Golden Hurricane into the top 25. The previous season, Tulsa lost to Michigan State in the Pearl Harbor Classic, but that still helped its power rating and eventual NCAA at-large berth.
"We wouldn't have gotten those teams at our place," said Illinois coach Bill Self, who coached Tulsa the previous three seasons. "Playing those teams helps your power rating and gives you a gauge on your team. High-major schools don't understand scheduling. Kansas (which hosts Tulsa) won't go home and home with Tulsa with or without TV. We need those tournaments."
And the NCAA Tournament selection committee can't afford to be in favor of elimination of exempted tournaments. The selection committee has told Division I teams that they must upgrade their schedules if they want to play in the NCAA Tournament. But taking away exempted tournaments would remove a chance to play a high-profile school on a neutral floor.
The tournament selection committee has nothing to do with legislation, but can influence the management council.
"Eliminating quality games makes the committee's job harder," said one member of the selection committee, who wished to remain anonymous. "The only thing that matters is who plays who."
The Maui Invitational has one of the best fields of any exempted tournament ever held. Potential top 10 teams Arizona, Illinois and Maryland will try to survive against possible top 25 teams Connecticut and Dayton, as well as potential bubble teams Louisville and UNLV (host Chaminade is the eighth team). Connecticut can go to Maui and come out 2-1 with a young, inexperienced team. But Huskies' coach Jim Calhoun wouldn't take his team to Tucson for a potential loss against a top ranked team.
But the money won't be shared by the Big East and the Pac-10 in a potential matchup in Maui.
"We're the middle men who put these things together and I've always thought the big conferences would want to run these tournaments," Powers said. "But Duke and Indiana (who could meet in the Preseason NIT) won't play each other in November. These tournaments help recruiting, help the student athletes who come to New York, go to museums and see a broadway show. No one just wants just ACC games."
And even fewer schools want to be excluded from power-rating and exposure driven games in November and December. Take these games away and college basketball will not only lose marquee events, but also its focus in the fall.
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com
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