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Conference USA to trim schedules for basketball and Olympic sports

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Conference USA will shorten regular season play and alter the postseason structure for several sports, beginning this fall.

The financial ramifications of the COVID-19 shutdown made it clear changes were coming to Conference USA schedules and those modifications are beginning to take shape. This week Stadium’s Brett McMurphy reported the men’s and women’s basketball tournament would be reduced from 12 teams to 8 along with other reductions.

The Denton Record-Chronicle’s Brett Vito has provided further details:

The league made several other changes, including:

  • The tournament field in volleyball will be cut from eight to four with the top-seeded team hosting the event. The regular season will be reduced from 14 to 13 games.
  • The number of regular season games in women’s soccer will be cut from 10 to six, a move that will allow programs to schedule more regional nonconference games and reduce travel costs.
  • The number of conference games in softball will be trimmed from 24 to 15, a move that will also allow for more regional nonconference scheduling.
  • The travel squads in track and field, cross country and swimming will also be reduced.

In addition to those changes, the baseball tournament will move from a neutral site to team venues. Rice will host at Reckling Park in 2023.

The reported changes align with expectations. Travel budgets are going to be tight in 2020 and into the next several seasons, at least. Seeing the total number of conference games decrease makes sense.

Adopting a model akin to the Ivy League where regular-season conference champions received any postseason bids in lieu of playing a conference tournament was on the table. The conference stopped short of changes that drastic, but the cutbacks detailed above are still sizable.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

How this plays out remains to be seen and could hinge on which games replace former league games. The more teams able to swap games against distance conference foes with in-state rivalries, the better. For Rice, this likely means adding more competitions against teams like Houston, Texas State and SMU. That, of course, will be contingent to some extent on changes to other conferences’ schedules. Getting dates with Texas and Texas A&M should be on the radar as well.

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Rice Tennis: Sumit Sarkar resilient through adversity

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Rice Tennis junior Sumit Sarkar fought through injuries and still managed a productive season. The future remains bright for the Owls’ ace.

Sumit Sarkar had been a rock for the program since he arrived in the spring of 2018. During his freshman season, he recorded the only singles win by a Rice tennis player over a ranked opponent. As a sophomore, he was named C-USA Men’s Player of the Year, the first Rice player to receive that distinction since Bruno Rosa in 2010. The 2019-2020 season was supposed to be a springboard for future success, but things never quite materialized.

The summer started off well for Sarkar. Following the NCAA Tournament, he played a number of international events that ran into July. Then a late-summer injury altered the course of his Rice season. He rehabbed in August and played in a few national tournaments, but he wasn’t back to playing at his best. Winning matches is hard enough when healthy.

Sarkar fought through it and found some success, going 6-3 from the top spot in the lineup during the season. But according to coach Efe Ustendag, Sarkar was never quite back to 100 percent.

Adjustments and improvements to his game which the two had hoped to work on this year were tabled. The 2019-2020 season became solely about getting him back onto the court and healthy, somewhat stunting any developmental goals he might have had for himself.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

Ironically, his healthiest stretch of the season came as the campaign itself was halted. “He’s healthy right now,” Ustendag said with a laugh. “But we’re just sitting.”

When the season ended he stayed in Houston to finish the semester, looking forward to an opportunity to get back to tennis. Sarkar will be back on the court soon enough. When that will be remains to be seen, but his impact on the team will be the same, greater even, with more than enough time to recover.

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Rice Baseball: Owls making progress on the recruiting front

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Rice Baseball continues to score big wins on the recruiting front, turning an unexpected early offseason into a stepping stone toward future success.

The abrupt end to the 2020 Rice Baseball season came amidst a tough string of weeks, both in sports and in the country. Instead of spending his Friday evenings at the ballpark, he was at home like the rest of the country. But, just like he’s always done, he kept working.

“The positive is, from my standpoint, [is that we’re] still working, still trying to get better,” he said during a conversation this spring after the season had been cut short. “It’s not a ‘take a vacation for the next 30 days”, he continued. “There’s work to be done.”

Winning recruiting battles has been one of those advantages the Owls have found over the prolonged break from baseball. One need look no further than the social media feeds of assistant coaches Cory Barton and Paul Janish, who have chronicled the Owls’ ascent with Janish’s favorite #Hootem hashtag and Owl gif:

Some of the players in question have been made public, some have remained secret. But the latest addition turned heads on the national stage when it was announced by Kendall Rogers of D1 Baseball: former Ole Miss signee Connor Walsh will transfer to Rice.

Walsh was the No. 27 ranked player in the nation coming out of high school. His expectations at the collegiate level were, and remain, sky high. But his debut had to wait longer than expected. He didn’t see the field for the Rebels last season, but his absence from the lineup card wasn’t his doing. He was tucked away behind stud shortstop Anthony Servideo, who hit .390 during the 17-game season.

Podcast: Former Rice Baseball star Anthony Rendon talks extended offseason

Current shortstop Trei Cruz is seen as an obvious MLB Draft selection. Should he leave the program for the pros this offseason, Walsh would step in as his replacement. Adding Walsh is the latest in an extremely productive extended offseason. By the time Rice baseball returns to the diamond they’ll be in much better shape.

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BREAKING: Rice Baseball to host 2023 Conference USA Tournament

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BREAKING: Rice baseball will host the 2023 Conference USA Baseball Tournament as the tournament shifts from Biloxi to member campuses starting in 2021.

Scheduling is going to look different across the landscape of college sports in the wake of the COVID-19 financial crunch. Conference USA will not be immune from those changes, some of which have already been put into action. Cutting down travel expenses wherever possible has been at the forefront of conversations.

One of the initial changes impacts the Conference USA Baseball tournament, which has been hosted at MGM Park in Biloxi, MS from 2017 to 2019. The tournament was scheduled to be played their again in 2020 before COVID-19 forced the cancelation of the season. Instead of the neutral site, the tournament is moving to member campuses.

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Rather than returning to Mississippi in 2021, the tournament will move to the newly renovated J.C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park. The home of the Louisiana State Bulldogs, Patterson Park was severely damaged in a tornado that passed through Ruston, LA in April of 2019. Southern Miss will host in 2022.

The Roost has confirmed Rice baseball will host in 2023. The Owls lasted hosted the conference tournament in 2013. Christian Stringer was named tournament MVP and the Owls punched their tickets to the postseason as tournament champions. Changing backdrops have been a good thing for Rice since then. Rice won the tournament when it shifted to Hattiesburg, MS in 2014 and again when it moved to Biloxi in 2017.

This is the first notable shift in scheduling that has come out in the wake of the pandemic. Further considerations including changes to Olympic sports and basketball scheduling could also be on the table. We will continue to provide updates on those as they come.

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Conference USA: Scheduling changes coming soon

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Conference USA athletics scheduling changes are on their way with modifications to the upcoming fall sports calendar expected soon.

The extended offseason has been a busy one for Conference USA and its member institutions and conversations among league officials and athletic directors about the structure of future schedules have been at the forefront.

“I don’t think there’s any question that our geographic stretch is a challenge for us,” Rice Athletic Director Joe Karlgaard said. “Pre-pandemic it was something that we made work. I think post-pandemic it’s something that we are really looking closely at.”

Ideas have been tossed around from sources inside and outside of Conference USA. Basketball is expected to end bonus play and could consider moving to a divisional structure to reduce travel. Olympics sports, in particular, are taking a hard look at more regionalized scheduling.

Administrators are also keeping an eye on what’s happening across the nation. The MAC cut postseason tournaments in several sports. Those changes reflect the historical Ivy League model, which traditionally awarded regular-season champions with any relevant postseason bids.

What will those changes look like? Karlgaard said the scope was far-reaching. “All of that is on the table for us to evaluate going forward.”

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

This is not smoke and mirrors. Karlgaard has already been in discussion with Athletic Directors at schools in close geographic proximity. “They’re all interested [in regionalized scheduling],” he said. “What form and shape that takes, I think, is going to take longer for us to hash out.”

Long term scheduling adjustments will take time to play out, but changes to the upcoming seasons are imminent. Karlgaard indicated that he expects Conference USA to address fall scheduling as soon as this week, particularly with athletes now allowed to return to campus at several member schools. Rice had not yet set a timetable for the return of their own student-athletes.

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