Early Season Tournaments

Okay, here is my take on early season tournaments in college basketball: I love them, but there are way too many.

That is the basic belief I have with early season tournaments, but I want to go a little further in depth with that basic belief. First, let's answer the questions: 1) Why do I love early season tournaments? and 2) Why do I feel there are too many?

Why do I love early season tournaments? This one is easy. They're fun to watch. They are a sneak preview into the season that is about to come. It is a tiny sliver of the magic that we see in March and early April. They give us a brief look at just about any team that will be worth a damn this season in college basketball. No doubt, I love early season college basketball tournaments for all the reasons every college basketball fan has for loving the game.

However, there are too many tournaments. Why do I feel that way? When you push aside tournaments like the Maui Invitational (Oh, sorry: The Maui Jim Maui Invitational) and the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament, the other tournaments are usually hit or miss because there aren't enough solid teams in the tournament. When you get a tournament that has 2 NCAA Tournament teams in the field and those two teams don't end up facing each other, which happens all too often in these tournaments, that does no one any good, except for the teams that advance by upsetting those NCAA Tournament-bound teams.

There was one definitively good tournament this season that had me really excited about this season: The Phil Knight Invitational. The PK80 was a celebration for Phil Knight's 80th birthday. Nike, which Knight is a co-founder of and once was the company's CEO, has had an indelible impact on the sport of basketball. Hence, the creation of this tournament held in Knight's hometown of Portland, Oregon.

The tournament compiled 16 teams into two separate brackets. The hometown teams of Portland and Portland State were included among a field of solid college basketball teams including Michigan State, North Carolina, Duke, Florida and Gonzaga.

I was listening to the Eye on College Basketball Podcast with Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander, and they raised the question of having a tournament like this every season. That got me thinking about what I would like to see in an early season college basketball tournament. In order to have a tournament like this every single season, though, it will take preparation and a system that can be repeated for years to come.

Here is my proposal: A field of 12 teams, broken into 4 groups of pool play. Then, a 4-team bracket to determine a winner, a 3rd place winner, 5th place, so on and so forth.

Who should be invited? I'm glad you asked.

I decided to take the KenPom ratings from last season to determine the field for a 2018 tournament, i.e. 2 years in advance. So, in theory, if this was a yearly tournament, this season's final KenPom ratings (or whatever rating you want to use) would determine a 2019 tournament.

I decided two pools should include the Power Conference teams (plus the Big East), and then the other two pools can include the top teams from other conferences. Here is the potential field:

Pool A - Villanova, Kentucky, Purdue
Pool B - UNC, Oregon, Kansas
Pool C - Gonzaga, Illinois State, Rhode Island
Pool D - Wichita State, Nevada, Middle Tennessee

Alternatives in case a team declines the invitation or has a previous arrangement.

Pool A - Butler, Creighton; Florida, South Carolina; Michigan, Wisconsin
Pool B - Louisville, Virginia; UCLA, Arizona; West Virginia, Baylor
Pool C/D - St. Mary's, SMU, Cincy, Dayton, VCU, Princeton, UNC Wilmington, Vermont, ETSU, UT Arlington, Bucknell, San Diego State

The 4-team brackets would look like this:

A1 vs. C1
B1 vs. D1

A2 vs. C2
B2 vs. D2

A3 vs. C3
B3 vs. D3

Winners would face each other for 1st/5th/9th place games
Losers would face each other for 3rd/7th/11th place games

So, each team would get a total of 4 games against legitimate NCAA Tournament teams. Would every team in this tournament actually make the NCAA Tournament? No, not necessarily, and it's likely that at least 1 non-NCAA Tournament-bound team will make this field each season.

However, a format like this can really benefit a lot of college basketball teams, not just the power conference teams. Plus, you would reward those who were among the top of their conference. Notice: Duke and Michigan State wasn't even in the alternative list due to their place among conference foes. Again, this isn't a perfect idea but I think it has merit and should be entertained. Frankly, I don't care how you select the teams as long as it rewards top teams from power conferences while including a list of 5-6 of the best "mid-major" conference teams.

There's a lot of things that I don't know. I don't know if this is the best idea. I don't know if this is what consumers, coaches, television networks, etc. want. I don't know if this can logistically happen.

But there's one thing I do know: Tournaments like the PK80 need to happen more. Preferably, they need to happen every college basketball season.

Let's make it happen.