NCAA undergoes several basketball changes

The National Collegiate Athletics Association Division I Basketball Committee
recently approved new post-season bracketing procedures, enabling more teams to
play closer to home.

Beginning with the 2002 tournament, after the four top teams in each region are
selected, the committee will assign those teams to first-/second-round sites,
emphasizing the placement in the most geographical compatible sites.

The process doesn’t take into account where the teams will play in the regionals the subsequent week.

CMU men’s head basketball coach Jay Smith said the change will benefit everyone
involved.

“The change is good for the welfare of the student-athletes,” Smith
said.

“To remain in the classroom and miss fewer days of class is a good thing.”

The committee will place teams in the eight first-/second-round sites in groups
(“pods”) of four (seeds 1, 16, 8 and 9; seeds 4, 13, 5 and 12; seeds
2, 15, 7 and 10; and seeds 3, 14, 6 and 11).

There will be two pods at each first-/second-round site and the two pods at a
site may feed into different regional sites.

“The committee wanted to maintain the event as a `national’ tournament,
with four evenly balanced regions, while at the same time, keeping as many teams
as close to their natural geographic area as possible,” said Mike Tranghese,
chair of the basketball committee and commissioner of the Big East Conference.

In another change the committee adopted for the 2002 tournament, the committee
will have the flexibility to place the fourth team selected from a conference
into the same region it placed the highest-seeded team from the same conference.

Another adjustment in the procedure is that the committee will not place teams
seeded one through five at a potential `home-crowd disadvantage’ in
the first round.

Previously, the protection only applied to teams seeded one through four.

“This is a win-win situation for both fans and parents plus the players,”
Smith said.

“I think people will like the changes.”

In other men’s basketball news, the NCAA will review two separate proposals
at the October management council meeting for exemptions to the five/eight scholarship
limitation.

Currently, NCAA schools are not allowed to sign more than five players in one
recruiting class, or more than eight in two years.

The NCAA is considering approving legislation that will take into account rare
exceptions, but may not include the NBA draft if players don’t leave in good
academic standing.

Another development the NCAA is investigation is the participation of high school
graduates in university or college run basketball camps.

College coaches have expressed concern to the NCAA about schools using a new enrolling
incoming freshmen to go to summer school to their advantage by enrolling incoming
players into basketball camps.

Even though camps are paid by the players, coaches have expressed concern that
some of the bigger schools have higher level camps, creating an unfair advantage
over other schools.

“We don’t ever do that here,” Smith said.

“I’m for the kids going to school in the summer and getting acclimated,
but it’s disheartening to hear other schools taking the new rule to the extreme.”

“I totally disagree with incoming players attending camps and I hope that
the rule is corrected,” Smith said.

The basketball committee will meet again in Sept. and Lee Fowler, director of
athletics at North Carolina State, will replace Tranghese as the committee chair
starting Sept. 1.