BYU’s schedule policy could send ripples through bracket
This trip to Orioles spring training takes a detour down memory lane
WASHINGTON — The NCAA basketball committee has more than its share of guidelines, though far less than in recent years.
At one point, teams from the same conference weren’t supposed to have any chance at meeting before a regional final. Now, as a result of bloated conferences, that timeline has been relaxed to as early as the round of 32 (if the teams met only one time in the regular season, like Michigan State and Minnesota had
The late show
last year).
Going further back, teams whose schools were hosting a tournament site weren’t allowed to play on the same day as
SARASOTA, Fla. — In the late summer of 1979, you couldn’t turn on your radio without hearing Michael Jackson belting out one of his first No. 1 singles, appropriately titled “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.” It was also a big hit in baseball clubhouses, where I unexpectedly found myself when a series of fortunate — or unfortunate circumstances, depending on who we’re talking about — changed my life forever.
Filling in for a couple of co-workers at the Orange County Register, I made road trips with the Los Angeles Dodgers and California Angels, then was promoted to a full-fledged baseball writer at about this time in 1980.
the games they were hosting, let alone on their home court. That rule was removed in the late 1990s.
Bottom line: There are plenty of bracketing rules that have come and gone. Some have come and remain and are forgotten because there hasn’t been a need to use them.
Take the case of BYU, which has a school policy not to play on Sundays in keeping with principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This caused quite the stir in 2003, when the Cougars were assigned to a Friday-Sunday regional when the bracket was unveiled. The NCAA quickly promised to switch BYU’s region after the first weekend, but a first-round loss eliminated the need to do so.
BYU is in fine shape to make its first NCAA tournament since 2015, which means the committee must thread the needle and keep the Cougars in ThursdaySaturday sites. It will mean they land in either the Midwest or West region, and play the first weekend in Albany, Spokane, St. Louis or Tampa if they earn a bid.
For the purposes of this week’s Washington Post bracket, that meant some shuffling. The Cougars came out as a No. 9 seed while sorting through the field, but the subregionals with the top seeds in both the Midwest and West create conflicts. Kansas is pegged for a Friday-Sunday site (Omaha), while Gonzaga won’t be permitted to meet BYU earlier than the Sweet 16 after facing the Cougars twice in the regular season.
It led to a suboptimal seed swap, with BYU going to the No. 10 line and in the same subregional as a No. 2 seed — and yet more problems. Midwest No. 2 seed Dayton (Cleveland) and West No. 2 seed Maryland (Greensboro, N.C.) are both ticketed for Friday-Sunday sites. The solution for this week was to swap sites, but not seeds, for Maryland and Villanova, which was slated to be in Albany as a No. 4 seed.
Is it what the committee would do in the same situation? Impossible to know for sure. But the situation does have the potential to ripple throughout the field in the final hours before the official bracket is revealed on Selection Sunday.
Field notes
Last four included:
Stanford, Virginia, Xavier
First four on the outside: Cincinnati, Minnesota, Alabama, Syracuse
Next four on the outside: N.C. State, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Utah State
Moving in: Hofstra, Murray State, Norfolk State, North Texas, Northern Colorado, Siena, Xavier
Moving out: Austin Peay, College of Charleston, E. Washington, Louisiana Tech, Monmouth, North Carolina A&T, Tulsa
Conference call: Big Ten (11), Big East (6), SEC (6), Big 12 (5), Pac-12 (5), ACC (4), Atlantic 10 (3), West Coast (3), American Athletic (2)
Wichita
State,