Q: Do you think the Big East will alter the conference championship format for the 2011 men's tournament based on the losses from the double-bye teams in 2010? Here is my unsolicited suggestion, two formats could work. First, add an extra home game for the top 8 teams in regular season standings. This would give access to the tournament to all fans. It would allow for more attendance and provide a benefit to the regular-season finish with an extra home game. All teams would participate with #1 vs #16 and #2 hosting #15 and so on to the #8 vs #9 game. Play would be Tuesday with games slotted at 7 and 9 p.m. for television purposes. The #1 through #4 side of the bracket would all play at the earlier time and the other bracket would play later. Winners advance to New York and resume play Thursday in a standard bracket format. The huge downfall for this is competing games on television at the same time and the difficulty of advance sale of tickets, for the extra game and for the tournament in New York, as there would be compromises on both sides. Secondly, using the #1 matches up with #16 theory above, play the #1-#4 bracket on Tuesday in New York and the #5-#8 part on Wednesday and resume the brackets on Thursday. This gives an extra-day rest for the top seeds, but retains the games in one place and wouldn't have games on television against each other. The only other option is to cut out the bottom four teams and install the format of past years with a single bye situation. The format is not working as top seeds falling does not make for an interesting semi-final round in a lot of cases. Thoughts?

Mike Donovan from Penn Hills

Fittipaldo: The second format you suggested is the one the coaches proposed over the summer. The top four seeds would play the bottom four seeds on Tuesday with the middle seeds playing on Wednesday. Then the tournament picks up again on Thursday with the traditional format. I kind of like that idea. The top four seeds earn the right to get that extra day's rest. As you saw this year, that first game for the top four seeds were brutal. Georgetown is a team capable of going to the Final Four and Syracuse had to play the Hoyas in its first game. That does not seem fair. It speaks to the depth of the conference. In the proposed scenario the coaches wanted Syracuse and Georgetown could potentially square off, but the Hoyas would be playing with no rest while Syracuse would have a day's rest. And yes, I do think the format will change. There is too much evidence the past two years that earning the double bye is not an advantage for teams. It's proven to be a disadvantage.

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