Originally Posted by FlyingArrow
Akron
Bowling Green
Cincinnati
Cleveland State
Dayton
Kent State
Miami
Ohio
Ohio State
Toledo
Wright State
Xavier
Youngstown State
13 Ohio teams. Brainstorming a format just because...
Take 8 teams. Choose the top 8 teams by RPI (based on previous season RPI rankings) and invite them to participate. Schedule it for December or January. Late enough that the season RPI has some meaning, but early enough to not conflict with late season games. Split the 8 teams into two halves based on the current season's RPI:
Round 1:
A: 1vs4
B: 2vs3
C: 5vs8
D: 6vs7
Round 2:
E: Game A winner vs Game B winner
F: Game A loser vs Game B loser
G: Game C winner vs Game D winner
H: Game C loser vs Game D loser
Round 3:
Game E winner vs Game G winner
Game E loser vs Game G loser
Game F winner vs Game H winner
Game F loser vs Game H loser
Kind of an anti-climactic finale since the top teams play each other early, but there is a chance for an upset. Upside is that nobody's schedule takes a bad hit from this. 3 games where the top 4 teams play each other for the first 2 rounds, and the 5 worst Ohio teams aren't in the tournament at all. And big incentive to play your way into the top 4 so you can play with seeds 1-4 instead of seeds 5-8.
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Way too complex and in today's environment of some conferences going to more conference games and less Non-Con games ...... not playable.
A 4 team event with rotating teams invited so there is a different 4 team set each year. The 4 teams would not play a round robin (see reasoning above.)
Or to make it more interesting let the winner or winners of previous year get to play against a new set of teams the following year with no winner going past 2 years in a row.
Each year play at different sites around the state OR set it at a central location that is neutral.