July 25, 2003 Athletics
Story
Big West Conference
Adopts New Basketball Tournament Format
The new format is
designed to reward regular season performances
 The
Big West Conference announced the approval of a format change
for its men's and women's postseason basketball tournament beginning
with the 2003-04 season. Action on the format change was taken
at the annual Big West Board of Directors meeting in Los Angeles,
Calif.
Eight men's and women's teams will continue to advance to the
tournament at the Anaheim Convention Center, March 10-13. However,
Wednesday's first round games will include only teams seeded
Nos. 5 to 8. Winners on Wednesday will advance to play teams
seeded Nos. 3 and 4 on Thursday. Thursday's winners will meet
teams seeded Nos. 1 and 2 in the semifinals on Friday. In each
round the highest seeded team playing that day will play the
lowest remaining seeded team. Once again, the men's and women's
tournament championship games will be on Saturday.
"The Big West basketball tournament format has been under
review by the conference membership for the past 14 months,"
said Commissioner Dennis Farrell. "This format change is
the result of input from Big West men's and women's coaches,
faculty athletics representatives, directors of athletics, senior
woman administrators, marketing directors and sports information
directors.
"This new format is designed to reward regular season
performances and create even greater incentives as teams compete
for positioning in the final regular season standings,"
continued Farrell.
Utah State won the Big West tournament championship in 2003
after finishing in third-place in the league during the regular
season. Overall, USU has won three of the last four tournament
championships, but Aggies head coach Stew Morrill is supportive
of the new format.
"The format we've had in the Big West Conference has been
very favorable to our program the last few years," said
Morrill. "However, I have always said any plan that better
rewards your performance in the regular season is something
I would be in favor of.
"The new format, in theory, gives teams who had the best
conference record a better chance of advancing to the NCAA Tournament,"
continued Morrill.
The Big West basketball tournament began in 1976 and is the
longest running postseason conference basketball event in the
West.
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