{"id":84880,"date":"2025-03-05T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/mark-pope-explains-benefits-of-expanding-to-40-game-regular-season\/"},"modified":"2025-03-05T15:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T21:30:00","slug":"mark-pope-explains-benefits-of-expanding-to-40-game-regular-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/mark-pope-explains-benefits-of-expanding-to-40-game-regular-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Pope explains benefits of expanding to 40-game regular season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Pope<\/a><\/strong> is all about expanding the college basketball regular season. <\/p>\n

Back in December<\/a>, he brought up the idea of stretching the schedule out to 40 games prior to the postseason. It\u2019s his first big-picture idea to change the current landscape of college hoops as Kentucky head coach, and one that could feasibly happen in the near future if the right people push for it.<\/p>\n

A couple of months later, it\u2019s a topic still fresh on his mind. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s time to expand our season out to a 40-game season,\u201d Pope said during a press conference last week<\/a> when asked hoq quickly this season has gone by. \u201cLike, it should be a 40-game season, especially with all the change and the turnover and the lack of continuity of teams, and also with revenue sharing and everything else, it doesn\u2019t make any sense that we\u2019re at a 31-game season. It makes no sense. And so I\u2019m a massive advocate, maybe the only one in the world. But we need to expand the season to 40 games. Even for the guys that go on to be pros, it gives them a better sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thought process behind Pope\u2019s idea isn\u2019t difficult to understand. More games = more money. That\u2019s massively important in this new NIL era. But his thinking goes far beyond simple dollar signs. The benefits extend to fans, players, and coaches. He\u2019s all for more exhibition games, more non conference games, and more conference games \u2014 whatever it takes to add another nine games to every regular season schedule. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to see all the above,\u201d Pope said when asked to explain the exact changes he would like to reach a 40-game schedule. \u201cI\u2019m so excited about this freedom to have Division I opponents in exhibition. I don\u2019t mind going to four exhibition games now with the freedom to do that. I think it gives you the opportunity to really grow and test your team in a great way. Because all of us now are trying to collect so much data on our team in just a matter of a couple months and so I think the more games we get, the better product we\u2019re going to have as we go. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019d love to see that, and I\u2019d love the non conference to to have a couple more games, because it gives you the freedom to go schedule better games. All of us right now, as athletic departments are going to be more and more financially challenged as the revenue sharing, if the settlement goes through. And so it\u2019s a way for us to actually increase revenue significantly and have the freedom to actually go find a couple more great games that are really impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n

A notable downside could be it creates the possibility for more injuries, something Kentucky is already dealing with in a 31-game season, but you could flip that argument into saying it creates more in-season time for recovery. If the goal is to play basketball beyond college, the majority of professional leagues play far more than 40 games in a single season. <\/p>\n

With how often rosters are changing in the transfer portal era, it\u2019s tougher to build teams with the same group of players for more than a couple of years. More games allows the coaches to figure out how the pieces work and the players opportunity to build chemistry. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it makes sense to add a couple games into the conference regular season,\u201d Pope continued. \u201cIt gives some conferences a chance to get to more of an even schedule in conference, which I think is a bonus. I think it\u2019s great when you can play home and away with every team every year. It just adds that real spice and a continuity to conferences. Some of the conferences are too big to probably get to that number, but the more of those home and homes that you get in conference, I think it makes conferences better. I think it\u2019s better for fans and better for teams and better for rivalries. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so I think all those things are important. Every study that you look at since the beginning of time will show that our students are better students during the season than they are out of the season because they have a schedule that they\u2019re locked into. <\/strong>And so I feel like it\u2019s a it\u2019s a no-miss scenario. I think it would be really positive, and I\u2019m advocating for it \u2014 in case I didn\u2019t say that already.\u201d<\/p>\n

It might not happen within the next calendar year, but don\u2019t be shocked if an expansion to the regular season becomes a topic of discussion sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

The post Mark Pope explains benefits of expanding to 40-game regular season<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Pope is all about expanding the college basketball regular season. Back in December, he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}