MAAC pressing forward with its plans for tourney in AC
The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference is planning to press forward with its league tournament in Atlantic City even as other conferences have opted for home sites or floated the idea of nixing it all together.
Reiterating the goal of getting all 11 men’s and women’s teams the 13 required games to be qualified for the NCAA Tournament, veteran commissioner Rich Ensor paved out the road ahead for the conference’s showpiece event — scheduled from March 9-13 — at Boardwalk Hall during a Zoom call on Tuesday afternoon.
“There’s an outside shot one or two (schools) may have a problem,” Ensor said. “They are making all efforts to get themselves back on the court and we’re working with them on the schedules. We’re adding these mid-week games and we do need to get those other teams qualified for the MAAC.”
When the league announced its latest round of schedule changes on Monday — a round that impacted all 11 teams — it noted that there have been over 90 changes on the men’s side.
“We’ve gotten down the road now, so it all comes down to dollars and cents at the end of the day,” said Rider coach Kevin Baggett, whose team has already reached the qualification threshold with a league-high 15 games completed. “There are teams in the MAAC that really depend on this money. It’s something that subsidizes everybody’s budgets. It’s important we have one. Regardless if we are a one or two (bid league), I’m glad that a number of us are getting down the road now and able to qualify in order to have someone be able to represent the MAAC come March.”
It’s now clear that not all 11 schools will complete a full 20game conference schedule before the MAAC Tournament. That alone won’t stop the tournament from going off, although it could lead to some complicated tiebreakers given the unbalanced schedule (the first tiebreaker will be number of conference wins).
“How they’re going to figure out who the champ is if we don’t get to go down (to Atlantic City) is going to make coaches not happy because we always know we get that chance at the end to right any wrongs,” Monmouth coach King Rice said. “If we don’t get that it will be disappointing, but this year, I think we just have to be flexible and play as many games as you can and do as well as you can.”
Ensor said all 22 teams — 11 men’s and 11 women’s — are expected to report to Atlantic City by March 7 so Covid testing can begin at 8 a.m. on March 8. Opening-round games featuring seeds 6-11 are scheduled to begin on Tuesday, March 9. The MAAC will administer PCR tests daily, Ensor said. PCR tests are considered more reliable than antigen body tests and are less likely to turn up a false positive.
The NCAA is also requiring seven straight days of negative tests before travelling to the site of the NCAA Tournament. Both tournaments are being hosted
by one city — the men in Indianapolis and the women most likely in San Antonio — and the MAAC representative will not travel home in between the conclusion of the MAAC Tournament on Saturday, March 13 and the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Ensor said. The MAAC’s automatic qualifier will depart either Saturday night or Sunday morning for the NCAA’s host city.
“The NCAA has quite a few enhanced protocols for travelling to these cities,” Ensor said. “They’re going to have a fairly strict process for doing it. Our part of it is to get the teams fully tested before the start of the championships so they fully qualify.”
In a hypothetical scenario in which the regular-season champion has to withdraw from the MAAC Tournament, but would be cleared by the time the NCAA Tournament starts on March 18, Ensor said it’s unlikely that team would receive the league’s AQ bid.
“I don’t know the membership as a whole would be enamored with that,” he said. “I could see where an individual school might want to see that happen, but I don’t see the 11 as a whole thinking that is the way to go.”
Ensor said the league has
until Feb. 26 to submit its final plan for determining the process in which it will select its AQ to the selection committee.
“There has been some talks within the major ranks where a team that is an obvious at-large selection might pull themselves out of their conference tournament just to lower the risk of an adverse exposure to another team,” Ensor said. “We have to make sure when we present to the NCAA, we have it locked down pretty tight. We’re going to do everything we can to get those teams qualified. I would say I’m relatively confident, but it’s been that kind of year, and it’s really hard to have a guarantee at this point.”
Atlantic City’s three-year deal with the MAAC ends after the 2021-22 season, although Ensor said there have been informal talks with Boardwalk Hall’s management about extending the contract. League insiders have indicated the preference would be to remain in Atlantic City for the foreseeable future.
“We realize they’ve really stepped up and worked with us in these unprecedented times,” Ensor said. “We want to give them an opportunity to host this in an environment not unlike what we planned when we did the deal.”