FanPost

14 team Basketball Schedule


With Conference play ending for the year, I thought I'd make put my suggestion for a new basketball schedule here.

In a given year with an 18 game schedule, every team will be able to play 5 teams twice and 6 teams once. The ACC will rotate their schedule over 3 years so each school will play every other school twice in a year at some point. I don't think that's the best idea for the SEC; why should Tennessee play LSU a second time when they could be playing Georgia or Alabama a second time?

I suggest every team be given 3 primary rivalries and 4 secondary rivals.

A team would play their primary rivals twice every year.
A team would play 2 of the 4 secondary rivals twice in a given year.

For example, Tennessee might have Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and South Carolina as primary rivals, and Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Missouri as secondary rivals.

In odd years, it would play VU,UK,SC,Arkie, and MU twice.
In even years, it would play VU,UK,SC,Bama, and UG twice.

A full 4-year schedule for Tennessee would look like this:

Year 1:
H: VU,UK,SC,Arkie,MU,Bama,A&M,OM,AU
A: VU,UK,SC,Arkie,MU,UG,FL,MSU,LSU

Year 2:
H: VU,UK,SC,Bama,UG,Arkie,FL,MSU,LSU
A: VU,UK,SC,Bama,UG,MU,A&M,OM,AU

Year 3:
H: VU,UK,SC,Arkie,MU,UG,A&M,OM,AU
A: VU,UK,SC,Arkie,MU,Bama,FL,MSU,LSU

Year 4:
H: VU,UK,SC,Bama,UG,MU,FL,MSU,LSU
A: VU,UK,SC,Bama,UG,Arkie,A&M,OM,AU

If you have season tickets for a standard 4 year collegiate career with this setup, you will see your primary rivals visit 4 times, your secondary rivals 3 times, and everyone else twice.

This allows teams to have stronger rivalries with most of the nearby teams in the conference. Arkansas has 7 SEC schools in states that border it. Their fans would see them all more frequently than they see a school like Georgia or South Carolina.


I came up with a sample setup for all 14 teams in the SEC. Because all the secondary rivals have to be coordinated, it takes a bit of time to do a complete one (I think I fooled around with this one over and hour and a half last fall while watching a football game). I wasn't aware of any historic 'must-have' rivalries in basketball, so this is based on geography:

Team-3 permanent rivals (4 secondary rivals)
FL-UG,AU,SC (LSU,A&M,UK,Bama)
UG-SC,FL,AU (UT,MSU,VU,UK)
AU-FL,UG,Bama (UK,SC,LSU,MSU)
SC-UG,UF,UT (VU,UK,MU,AU)
UT-VU,UK,SC (Bama,Arkie,UG,MU)
BAMA-AU,OM,MSU (A&M,FL,UT,LSU)
UK-UT,MU,VU (FL,UG,AU,SC)
VU-UT,UK,OM (UG,MU,SC,Arkie)
OM-Bama,MSU,VU (MU,LSU,Arkie,A&M)
MSU-Bama,OM,LSU (Arkie,AU,A&M,UG)
LSU-A&M,Arkie,MSU (AU,Bama,FL,OM)
Arkie-A&M,MU,LSU (OM,VU,MSU,UT)
A&M-LSU,Arkie,MU (MSU,OM,Bama,FL)
MU-UK,A&M,Arkie (SC,UT,OM,VU)


The order the secondary schools are listed indicates where you play them over the 4 year cycle.
For example, MU has (SC,UT,OM,VU) listed. This would be how they appear on the schedule:

Year 1: H:UT,VU,SC A:UT,VU,OM
Year 2: H:SC,OM,UT A:SC,OM,VU
Year 3: H:UT,VU,OM A:UT,VU,SC
Year 4: H:SC,OM,VU A:SC,OM,UT

A FanPost gives the opinion of the fan who writes it and that fan only. That doesn't give the opinion more or less weight than any other opinion on this blog, but the post does not necessarily reflect the view of TSK's writers.

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