MAC Makes Significant Changes

And I suspect they won't be the last.  It has been bad until now and I fear it will only get worse.  I do think there will be football this fall...though if it happens I suspect no fans will be there.  And that's just a little more likely than not.  There are severe budget issues, sports are in danger.

Let us hope for the best.

The MAC announced some pretty significant changes today.  Let's take a look.

The most significant change to what we follow here had to do with men's and women's basketball.

They've reduced both tournaments to 8 teams.  No Monday night games....all 8 teams straight to Cleveland.  

I think this is a fine thing.  Nobody likes those Monday games, there are rarely many fans there, at least 2-3 teams had really bad seasons and I think most of them want it to be over.  In the modern era, (the tournament in Cleveland), only two teams (in MBB) ranked below 8 have made the finals:

OU 2010 #9, won, went to Sweet 16

Miami 2000 #9, lost

I think it will create some more Thursday upsets.  Playing Monday and then playing Thursday was a big disadvantage, so this could create some more dramatic games on the first day in Cleveland.  It also eliminates an issue with re-seeding, where the #1 seed was not guaranteed to play the lowest seed.

It also rewards the regular season, which I am always in favor of.

And it will create an exciting piece of drama as teams battle for the #8 slot.

They got rid of divisions, which was long overdue.  They had no meaning anyway, except for allowing Reghi to talk about someone having a shot to win the MAC West.  No other conference was using them and it was time to go.  Beyond eliminating something dumb, it also will help create fairer scheduling by distributing the games a little better.

Speaking of scheduling, the MAC will also go to 20 conference games. A lot of bigger conferences are adding conference games as well.   I like this.  Most of the MAC teams have trouble scheduling home games OOC and have to pay them to come, which costs money people assume they aren't going to have.  Again, if we had a really thrilling OOC schedule, this would be tough, but we don't.  In conference play is typically great and more of it is good for me.

We still expect EMU to play 4 NAIA teams.

So that's the change to basketball.

Meanwhile, the post-season MAC tournaments have been greatly reduced.  There will be no post-season tournament in:

Baseball

Softball

Men’s Soccer

Women’s Soccer

Men’s Tennis

Women’s Tennis

Women’s Lacrosse

Field Hockey

I remember when they started baseball.  It was actually a reaction to the unfair impact rainouts were having on determining a champion.  Anyway, from now on the regular-season champion will get the NCAA bid in all of the sports listed above.

The other championships were all shortened or have reduced teams.

So off we go.  These changes are in for four years.  Hold onto your hats....these times they are a'changin.