New Big Sky Tournament format for 2023

[BelgradeBobcat]

https://bigskyconf.com/news/2022/3/10/m ... acket.aspx

With SUU leaving it will be a 10 team tournament. They're going from Saturday to Wednesday. This will allow for the men's championship to be on ESPN2 and also have the women's championship on ESPNU. The two tournaments will be more in parallel with both championships on the same day. The combined tournament will be a day shorter. Also, no more early morning games. The earliest tipoffs will be noon.

[Bocephus]

https://bigskyconf.com/news/2022/3/10/m ... acket.aspx

With SUU leaving it will be a 10 team tournament. They're going from Saturday to Wednesday. This will allow for the men's championship to be on ESPN2 and also have the women's championship on ESPNU. The two tournaments will be more in parallel with both championships on the same day. The combined tournament will be a day shorter. Also, no more early morning games. The earliest tipoffs will be noon.

Looks good to me! Championships being played on the same day makes way more sense.

[MSU01]

I think they did a really nice job with these to put the men and women on the same schedule while still using a single venue. It seems better for fans who want to watch both their men's and women's teams, the top 2 seeds get a slight advantage by playing Sun/Tues/Wed instead of Mon/Tues/Wed, and the #1 seed is guaranteed to get the weakest (by seed) opponent in the quarterfinals by playing 7 vs 8 and 9 vs 10 in the first round instead of 7 vs 10 and 8 vs 9. The only real drawback I see is the championship being played in the middle of the week makes it harder for fans to travel to watch in person on short notice if their team makes it that far, but I suppose the increased TV exposure on ESPN2 counteracts that somewhat.

[CATS2000]

That sucks they are losing Southern Utah. That's a good basketball program. Wish they would have kept them and added 1 more to make it the normal 12 team type conference.

[WalkOn79]

That sucks they are losing Southern Utah. That's a good basketball program. Wish they would have kept them and added 1 more to make it the normal 12 team type conference.

Not going to miss SUU, at all. They institutionally just never fit the profile.