I have a friend who writes a sports blog and I, plus a few other sports nuts, like his sometimes grumpy point of view. This is from his latest rant:
Kentucky coach, John Calipari, has a habit of saying some “off-center” things. That should not, however, lead you to believe he is unintelligent. Calipari has lots of good ideas but good ideas rarely attract a similar level of public attention as compared to off-center ideas/remarks. Several weeks ago, Calipari suggested that the SEC should not hold a conference championship tournament at the end of the basketball season. His idea is that the regular season conference champion would claim the guaranteed NCAA Tournament bid and then the Selection Committee could pick and choose from the other schools in the conference to fill out the field. He believes that late-season losses in the SEC Tournament hurt teams in the conference with regard to selection and with regard to seeding.
In its place, he suggested that the SEC hold an early-season tournament that was not a single-elimination format. With 16 teams, every team would play 4 games; there would be an early-season tournament champion and every school would get 4 games under their belts early on. He thinks that would be a way to get lots of fans to engage with their teams. Here is Calipari’s general outline for this early-season tournament:
“You have to do it in November. Play a game or two and then, out of the gate, you have a conference tournament. You know you have it for one week. Maybe you have two sites in the same city. Maybe it’s in Atlanta. You’re doing it every year. Let’s all [have] our fans go to Atlanta and everything is geared for the SEC.”
