NCAA council proposes starting regular season three days earlier; other changes also proposed

The college basketball season could start three days earlier if changes proposed by an NCAA council are implemented. The organization’s Division I Council suggested that the start date of the season be moved to the Tuesday before the second Friday in November. The change would allow teams to have more flexibility in scheduling season-opener games that do not conflict with football games.

Council members agreed to extend the waiver allowing the NCAA to pay for family travel expenses to the Division I Men’s and Women’s Final Fours. The waiver was extended by a year.

According to the NCAA, other changes suggested by the council include:

• Changing the women’s basketball first practice date to 42 days before the team’s first competition, allowing 42 days to complete 30 practices. Current rules allow 30 practices in 40 days.
• Create recruiting “shutdown” periods for all women’s basketball coaches in May and August.
• Shifting the fall weekend for nonscholastic evaluations in women’s basketball to the third weekend in May.
• Revising the July women’s basketball evaluation period.
• Allowing women’s basketball coaches to use 10 of the allowed 112 recruiting-person days evaluating prospects outside an evaluation or contact period at any live organized activity involving the national team or affiliates if the team is coached by a Division I school’s coach or has a coach involved. The activity would have to be approved, sponsored or conducted by the applicable national governing body, and some limits would apply. Under the proposed legislation, women’s basketball coaches also could use their allowed days at regional championships approved, sponsored or conducted by the International Basketball Federation. Some limits would apply.

“The calendar change would provide a little bit of relief from compaction in the calendar,” Sandy Hatfield Clubb, chair of the Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee and athletics director at Drake said. “It moves the first game from conflicts with volleyball and football and puts a little bit more of the spotlight on basketball student-athletes as we start the season. The practice change provides more flexibility in the calendar but doesn’t change the demands on a student’s time.”

The council could vote on these proposals as early as January.