On Thursday the America East conference changed their tournament format for the 2015 and 2016 championships to a campus sites format, similar to the Northeast Conference and Patriot League.
The coaches unanimously recommended changing the format from playing two games on a campus ‘neutral’ site to playing at campus sites for all rounds. The quarterfinals will be played on Wednesday at the four highest seeds. The semifinal rounds will be played at the two highest seeds on Sunday and the championship will continue it’s normal format on a Saturday at the highest seed.
“I thought everyone was really on the same page, we talked about it the prior year after our coaches meetings,” Vermont head coach John Becker said. “The coaches were much more split about going to a higher seed format as oppose to having a conference tournament, but this year when we talked about it there was much more agreement on having a higher seed tournament.”
Hartford head coach John Gallagher said that watching top seeded Stony Brook lose against Albany, who was playing at home in SEFCU Arena, helped change his mind on the format.
“For me personally it was seeing Steve [Pikiell] and Stony Brook lose,” Gallagher said. “In our league they were seeded 11 or 12 in the NCAA tournament if you look at Joe Lunardi’s numbers. We have to have that team in the NCAA tournament for our league. Forget about Hartford, forget about everything, I’m just looking at it from a league perspective. When you have a chance to have a team be an 11 or 12 seed it made my opinion change.”
“This isn’t a slight at Will [Brown] or Albany at all, they earned it. They had an administration and a university that did the bid for the tournament, they deserved to win it, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying what made everybody change their mind is when you have a conference that traditionally is a 15 or 16 seed in the last five or six years and you’re looking at the board and there they are at 11 or 12 and they got a legitimate chance to win that game for your conference. It makes people shift their opinion when that happens.”
Last season Stony Brook went 14-2 in league play and went a school record 25-8, losing to Albany 61-59 in the America East tournament semifinals. The Seawolves RPI prior to the NCAA tournament was 83.
Stony Brook head coach Steve Pikiell said he didn’t agree that Stony Brook’s semifinal loss changed the nature of the tournament but said that the previous format favored lower seeds.
“I was a nine seed and I was a one seed, there were absolutely no advantages at all being a higher seed in our current format,” Pikiell said. “I thought a lot of advantages were for the lower seeded teams.”
Binghamton head coach Tommy Dempsey, in his first America East tournament experience, saw his eighth seeded Bearcats face Stony Brook in Albany in front of a sparse crowd. In what was the most important game of their season, they played in front of a crowd filing in of Albany fans for the session’s second game against Maine.
“If UAlbany wasn’t playing the atmosphere wasn’t good,” Dempsey said favoring the new model. “In this model you’re going to play your biggest games of the year in electric environments. If we finish in the bottom half of the league we deserve to be on the road, we didn’t play our way into a home game, but if you play your way into a home game now you have a chance to host. That night of the quarterfinals there will hopefully be four sellouts.”
As a head coach at Rider, Dempsey had the experience of coaching a tournament game in a neutral site as a road team. At the 2008 MAAC championship game Dempsey’s second seeded Broncs lost to top seeded Siena 74-53 at the Times Union Center after splitting the season series with them.
“They were terrific at that time and we were good too,” Dempsey said. “You can’t help but feel that they have the significant advantage playing a home game in front of 10,000 people in the biggest game of the year. It’s awesome with the MAAC tournament in Albany, it is terrific on so many different levels because the community of Albany supports it, but from a coaching standpoint you want to have as fair of a situation play out as you think you can.”
In the summer the coaches recommended the tournament shift to campus sites and all of them agree that the campus site format will spread out the thrill of the month of March.
“I think it gives four campuses an opportunity to experience March madness on their campus,” Albany head coach Will Brown said. “If you have four teams getting first round home games you would think that those facilities would be sold out and you’d have four great atmospheres.”
Becker said the format change would be an opportunity for Vermont, which has never hosted the America East tournament’s preliminary rounds.
“I think it was just not quite fair for everyone because some schools continually host it and some schools never host it,” Becker said. “Unless the conference could create a neutral site conference tournament I think this is the best way to do it. I think it’s going to be real exciting for the four teams that host the quarterfinals, their fans and really selling out those gyms. I think throughout the whole tournament there’s going to be sellouts and it should make for a fun tournament.”
Aki Thomas, entering his second season as head coach at UMBC, said he was gradually more excited as the change of format offers universities to showcase their school spirit.
“I always talk about March madness being a really festive moment for our players,” Thomas said. “I think it will probably turn out pretty well based on you can get your home crowd involved, somebody’s home crowd involved that deeply into postseason play I think it can only generate more of a buzz. I’m looking forward to see from our campus standpoint too, hopefully we’re in that position [in March 2015] to host.”
For a league whose fourth and fifth place teams have not been separated by more than two games since 2010, the new format should add excitement into the final days of the regular season. The opportunity for a postseason home game will likely be a motivating factor for teams to finish in the top four.
“I think having a home playoff game is going to be real crucial to a lot of teams,” Dempsey said. “It’s going to make the regular season more important and more fun going down the stretch knowing that if you finish in that top half you’re going to get a chance to host a game.”
”I know in a situation like ours coming from where we’re coming from to try to get your program in position to get a home playoff game. This place would, after everything we’ve been through for Binghamton, to have a home playoff game in the next couple years I think it would be really special.”
The coaches said that they recommended the campus sites format change, but did not reach a consensus regarding whether the field should be reseeded. The athletic directors and administrators made the decision to reseed after each round.
“My only concern is I don’t agree with the reseeding,” Brown said. “I was hoping that we would just establish a bracket knowing it would be higher seeds throughout. Now we have an established bracket, everybody can follow that bracket and just go from there.”
Becker said his concern is making sure that teams can figure out travel arrangements for each game with the reseeded bracket.
“You may not know where you’re going that next game,” Becker said. “The league office and the administrators at the schools on the staffs have to account for traveling and all that, it could potentially be a pain in the neck for them especially if you end up flying down to UMBC or flying somewhere. It could get a little tricky there so that’s the one drawback of the reseeding situation.”
UMBC’s Thomas agreed and said that travel may be the only issue concerning coaches should road teams progress in the tournament.
“If you’re not that higher seed and you got a little bit of a lower seed having to continue to win you’ll be jumping around,” Thomas said. “Other than that, there are no concerns. I’m looking forward to it.”
Ryan Restivo wrote the America East preview for the ESPN Insider College Hoops 2013-14 Preview and covers the conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo or contact Ryan at rrestivo[at]nycbuckets.com.