Sunny skies and sandy beaches await Xavier’s men’s basketball team in this week’s Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, but the destination is just the icing on the exempt tournament.
It’s primarily a business trip filled with resume-building opportunities on the hard court.
The No. 8 Musketeers play three games in four days, starting Thursday with Long Beach State and continuing Friday against Auburn or Hawaii. XU meets one of four possible foes – Clemson, Kansas State, the University of Texas at El Paso or Southern Illinois – on Sunday, christmas flowers usa blogs Day.
Xavier has played in regular-season tournaments seven times since 2002 and every year since 2006. That’s when an NCAA rules change allowed programs to compete annually in exempt tourneys as long as they didn’t play in the same event more than once in a four-year frame.
Tournaments have increased since the rule change, and the influx of participating teams has reaped the benefits. Not only can teams face opponents and styles they otherwise wouldn’t, but many brackets unfold entirely on neutral courts in vacation destinations.
The chance to prep for conference tournaments and the NCAA Tournament by playing games in short order is a bonus, and so is the way an exempt event counts on a team’s schedule.
Whether a team plays in a three- or four-game event, all its exempt tournament games count as one regular-season contest – which allows it to further diversify its schedule and present a larger body of work for postseason consideration.
From his perspective on the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski believes exempt events help in teams’ evaluations for Selection Sunday.
“The more evidence we have, the more comparison and evaluation opportunities that we have with different teams, the better job we can do when it comes to selection time,” Bobinski said.
“I think they add value to our process and I think they are good for the game. Having competition out of your traditional group and traditional regions is kind of a fun thing. It shakes the game up a little bit.”
XU might not otherwise have faced Long Beach State without the Diamond Head Classic. Distance, travel considerations, players’ school commitments and scheduling availability from Xavier’s perspective would have had to align with the West Coast program’s needs for a series to work.
Because exempt tournaments can only include one team per conference, XU is the lone Atlantic 10 member in the Diamond Head Classic. The rest of the field includes the Atlantic Coast Conference (Clemson), Big 12 (Kansas State), Big West (Long Beach State), Conference USA (UTEP), Missouri Valley Conference (Southern Illinois), Southeastern Conference (Auburn) and Western Athletic Conference (Hawaii).
While the different types of competition in such events have immense value, the financial incentives generally do not. Costs can be considerable despite the assistance of event sponsors.
ESPN senior director of event management Clint Overby said his company tries to offset teams’ expenses in their five exempt tournaments: the Old Spice Classic, Puerto Rico Tip-Off, Diamond Head Classic, 76 Classic and Charleston Classic.
“Teams get a stipend for airfare and we cover hotels on site for their specific travel party,” Overby said.
“The Hawaii stipend is more because of the distance and multiple legs (on planes), and we’re taking that into consideration.”
As a private institution, Xavier is not required to share its athletic finances. Bobinski said he appreciates the funds tournaments have given Xavier to defray costs, and he considers participation a worthy endeavor despite the financial obligations.
Food alone costs tens of thousands of dollars.
“It’s an investment on our part. From a competitive standpoint, it’s one that we feel has a return and has value to us,” Bobinski said.
Of course, XU isn’t required to play in exempt tournaments. It, like other Division I teams, could travel another NCAA-approved route by adding two more non-conference games to its schedule.
That’s not a likely scenario for Xavier as long as it’s offered good tournament opportunities. The program has already locked up its next three: the Puerto Rico Tip-Off in 2012, the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas in 2013, and the Old Spice Classic in Florida in 2014.
Xavier has become a part of ESPN’s rotation because of its basketball success, competitiveness and good amount of traveling fans, Overby said. Those are characteristics the company tends to look for in all its tournaments.
While ESPN events add another perk – televised games on its family of networks – a tournament’s RPI benefits can be even greater, regardless of host. XU has defeated teams like Memphis, Missouri, Villanova and Virginia Tech in exempt tourneys.
“We’ve built parts of our NCAA Tournament resume in these events,” Xavier director of basketball administration Mario Mercurio said.
“What I’ll say to event organizers is, ‘I want a great field.’ I want to count on Top 100 RPI games, teams that are going to be in the NCAA Tournament, Top 25 teams.”
For Xavier, accepting a Diamond Head Classic invitation was a slam dunk from a competition standpoint. The tournament’s timing was another story. Administrators had to mull the pros and cons of playing over christmas flowers usa for the first time.
“We understand for our team, for our staff and for our fans, to be on the road at that time of the year requires a sacrifice in some ways. We really wrestled with it,” Bobinski said.
But players will have chances to learn about the Hawaiian culture in a state they may not have visited on their own.
One reason coach Chris Mack said he likes exempt tournaments is because players are exposed to new places.
This tourney marks freshman Justin Martin’s first trip to Hawaii.
“Everybody wants to vacation in Hawaii,” Martin said.
“Even though it’s not a vacation, I do get to say I’ve been there. I’m definitely looking forward to it.”
Freshman Dez Wells and sophomore walk-on Landen Amos won’t make the trip because of the four-game suspensions they received from the Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout fight, but Mark Lyons will. His two-game suspension ends after Long Beach State.
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