Conference USA Is Completely Revamping Its Conference Schedule Setup

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A conference's very interesting attempt at getting higher seedings and more teams into the NCAAT:

Next season, C-USA's men's basketball schedule will look nothing like that of any other Division I conference. Instead of releasing a hard-set regular season conference schedule, C-USA will seed its teams after the opening 14 games of the conference slate. The conference will then face its best teams off against one another over the next four games, with the end goal of placing multiple teams in the NCAA tournament and securing higher seeds for those teams. It's the old "iron sharpens iron" adage, basically, with some added strength-of-schedule boost built in.

"We're going to play 13 games and your travel partner twice, which would be Western Kentucky for us," said D'Antoni. "Then they are going to seed the schools. If you finish in the top five, No. 1 through No. 5 will play each other for the next four games to get 18 games.

"Like, if you're No. 1 you will play No. 4. And you'll play, I think, No. 4 and No. 3 at home and then travel to No. 2. ... There are four games in that five-team slot. No. 1 will play No. 5 and No. 4, I think. And No. 2 and No. 3 will come to No. 1.

"Then, if you're No. 2 you will play No. 4. It just reverses all the way down until you get everybody in that top group playing each other once. That will give you 18 games."

By having its best teams essentially play a mini-tournament before the conference tournament, it is identifying and doing away with games that conferences schedule based on meaningless East-West or North-South divisions; in their place will be a system that emphasizes important, head-to-head matches between its best teams. Teams won't have to stake their postseason cases—or, anyway, their RPIs—on their sole mid-season encounter with the one other good team in their conference. Instead, they can look forward to three-to-four games against those teams by the time the conference tournament ends.

Full article: https://deadspin.com/conference-usa-is-completely-revamping-its-conference-s-1826386373