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COVID-19 has forced the NCAA to rework its long-standing schedule for the men’s basketball tournament, and while acknowledging that this damn pandemic shouldn’t be credited with anything positive, well, turning the Sweet 16 in a weekend affair and pushing the Elite Eight to the top on Monday and Tuesday weather was… genius.
And that’s something the NCAA should make permanent.
Sweet 16 matches have been played regularly on Thursdays since 1953. It wasn’t called Sweet 16 at the time, of course. With just 22 teams in the entire tournament, it didn’t deserve a nickname (the term didn’t come into vogue until the late 1980s).
Even as the event grew in size and popularity, the basic setup continued: four Sweet 16 games played on Thursday and Friday each, then two Elite Eight games on Saturday and Sunday. The winners will go to the Final Four the following weekend.
Then came COVID, wiping out the entire 2020 tournament and leaving NCAA staff desperate to make 2021 work.
Tradition has now taken precedence over practicality. Protocols, testing, venue availability, player rest and health, and around a million other factors have become priorities.
The biggest problem was the first four – the four play-in matches that took place previously on Tuesday and Wednesday (two each night) immediately after the selection on Sunday. The NCAA couldn’t test the players in time for this.
“Thursday was the first day we could start with testing and protocols,” NCAA basketball vice president Dan Gavitt said in January.
Thursday, however, traditionally begins the first round – 16 games that run from noon to midnight (EST) and cause countless sick days on the job. There are 16 more on Friday. Then the round of 16 on Saturday and Sunday.
So it was all pushed back one day – the first round of 2021 was on Friday and Saturday and the second round was on Sunday and Monday.
The NCAA decided to change more over the middle weekend. If nothing else, no one wanted a team to have to play four times in eight days (Thursday game, Saturday first round, Monday second round, Thursday Sweet 16).
Besides, what was the rush?
The result was a gift for basketball fans. Rather than scrambling four games in two TV windows Thursday and Friday night (or late afternoon in the West), the NCAA has scheduled all games to be played back-to-back Saturday and Sunday – essentially 2 p.m. to midnight is.
Suddenly, no madness was lacking. It was a one day smorgasbord (followed by another one day smorgasbord) rather than a lot of remote control work.
Best of all, every game – and team and player – has its own chance to shine. There was no featured contest. An upstart with a small fan base like Oral Roberts got the same national attention as a Michigan or UCLA.
If you reach this stage, you get the limelight.
“CBS, being great partners, worked with us to imagine a Sweet 16 game tour without [overlapping] games, ”Gavitt said. “All of these games, four Saturdays and four Sundays, will have their own exclusive windows, which will only create an incredible viewing experience.”
Gavitt’s prediction was correct.
The idea of playing Sweet 16 on Saturday and Sunday (and even starting the first round on the weekend) has been around and even presented at NCAA headquarters for at least two decades. There was simply no call to action.
We’ll see what ratings this produces – although comparisons would be difficult. Not only is the number of sports viewers decreasing almost everywhere, but the time slots, days and tours are different. These games also lack reputable programs like Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, etc.
Going forward, the NCAA is expected to revert the top four back to its original Tuesday / Wednesday, then begin the first round on traditional Thursday at noon. The Final Four and the title game should always be a Saturday / Monday affair.
However, the middle weekend is set to go with the 2021 precedent. It offers more visibility, actually cuts down on missed class time for players (we know, but still), and gives teams doing Sweet 16 a little more leeway to bask in the accomplishment and advertise.
The only downside is that every year a Sweet 16 site is held in the football stadium that will host the Final Four the following year (it’s kind of a dry race). It will be difficult to try to attract a huge crowd on a Tuesday evening rather than a Sunday afternoon.
A radical solution to this?
Follow the example of 2021 – where the whole event was held in Indiana – and host the Sweet 16 / Elite Eight in one city every year.
You only need two locations (NBA’s Bankers Life Fieldhouse and Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse ran the Sweet 16). As much a carnival as the Final Four is, having 12 games played over four days in a city would be even better for the basketball freak.
It would become a huge event in its own right. Maybe Indy becomes the annual Sweet 16. Or maybe it turns to markets that don’t have a domed football stadium and therefore can’t host a Final Four (New York, Chicago, Boston, Kansas City, Philadelphia). Meanwhile, the first two rounds and the Final Four would continue to bounce back in America as is.
If that’s too much change at one time, at least stick to the second weekend schedule.
We might as well make the most of COVID.
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