Coach K, Roy endorse shorter season
Posted: Sunday, November 08, 2009 5:46 PM
Filed Under:
NCAA
What if I told you the college basketball season could be shorter but still have the same amount of games? Is that something you’d be interested in?
Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski certainly are. With any luck, people will listen. And by people, I mean the NCAA.
Kevin C. Cox/Getty images |
You want to start after Nov. 1? Hey, me too!
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The NCAA’s 30-member Men’s Basketball Enhancement Group (terrible name, but it actually has a decent amount of responsibilities) thinks that dropping a regular-season would be a good way to shorten the season and thus ease some of the burdens on student athletes. The NCAA’s Legislative Council is going to consider the proposal in January.
Shortening the season is fine, but eliminating one regular-season game would be stupid. That wouldn’t reduce any practice time, which is the big time suck for players. Taking away a game also would reduce revenue for schools since that’s fewer tickets sold.
But hey, don’t take my word for it. Listen to a couple of the game’s top coaches.
Williams and Krzyzewski both told the Raleigh News & Observer that they’re in favor of starting practice Nov. 1 – two weeks later than it starts now – and starting the season a couple weeks after that. It would affect a couple of games and particularly the holiday tournament schedules, but there’s enough room to adjust.
And the potential pay loss looms large, especially during this recession.
"When we talk about length, I don't think they should do number of games," Krzyzewski said. "Kids want to play games. I think that's a big mistake, and also financially, that's a big payday every game. They can shorten the season, the practice time."
If the coaches aren’t sweating the loss of practice time, isn’t that enough to sway the NCAA?
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