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It would be a change to the start of the season for both men’s and women’s basketball if approved
Late last week, the NCAA’s Division 1 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Oversight Committees put forth a proposal to alter the timing for the start of the season for both sports. If approved in October by the Division 1 council, the changes would go into effect for the 2025-26 seasons.
Here’s what we’re looking at:
Men’s Basketball would start on the Wednesday 22 weeks before the championship game in April. Under the current schedule, the 2025-26 season would start on Tuesday, November 11, and the changed schedule would move that to Wednesday, November 5.
Women’s Basketball would start on the Monday 22 weeks before the championship game in April. Under the current schedule, the 2025-26 season would start on Tuesday, November 11, and the changed schedule would move that to Monday, November 3.
According to the NCAA, this would serve several purposes:
- It would standardize the length of the season, which varies between 21 and 22 weeks sometimes
- It would allow for a separate focus on women’s basketball both in general and on campus, as the first allowed game would be on a different day
- It would allow for easier scheduling for both sports at schools where both sports use the same arena
One thing not mentioned in the NCAA’s reasoning that particularly applies to Marquette and the Big East is that some leagues hold their women’s conference tournament before their men’s conference tournament. What ends up happening there is an empty week of the schedule goes unused. This past season, the Big East’s women’s basketball conference tournament championship game was played on Monday, March 11th. However, Selection Sunday wasn’t until March 17th. Shifting the schedule to start earlier won’t change that dead space on the calendar, but it would allow for extra time for games to be played that otherwise isn’t getting used. Decompression of the schedule was cited as a reason why Big East women’s hoops downgraded from a 20 game schedule to only 18 games in recent seasons. Further decompression could allow women’s hoops to go back to a full round robin schedule in the league. Maybe not, given that I suspect the big reason was to allow UConn to play more non-conference contests, but it would be possible at the very least.
Officially, this is only a proposal, but generally speaking, the Division 1 Council is a rubber stamp for anything that the Oversight Committees put forth. That means this is almost definitely happening starting in the fall of 2025. It won’t mean more games on the schedule, just more time to play the same number of games. Are you in favor of Marquette having more time off in between games in November and December? Got questions? Obvious problems that come to mind when you read all of this? That’s what the comments section is for, fire at will, y’all.