It wasn’t all that long ago that the Frontier Conference’s postseason automatic bid to the men’s and women’s NAIA national tournaments were decided on campuses around Montana. The format was more of a playoff system with the higher-seeded teams hosting the games, until a champion was crowned. But in the blink of an eye, that format was scrapped for a first-round home playoff system, with the four remaining higher seeds gathering at a site to battle it out for the conference title. And in a blink of an eye, that was gone, and a full-fledged conference tournament was born, the most recent of which has been played in Butte’s Maroon Activity Center for the past five years. And guess what? Bat one more eye and the Frontier basketball tournament is no longer. Earlier this spring, the conference’s athlet i c directors gathered and made some strong changes, including scrapping the Frontier’s postseason tourney. Instead, the men’s and women’s postseason championships in basketball will be decided back on campus, with the playoff system in effect — at least for the 2008-09 season anyway. Conference commissioner Mike Walker said the idea for playoff games to be played on campus would be to generate more fan enthusiasm, and of course, money is involved too. He noted recently that rising fuel costs impacted changes, and with the playoff system, only half of the league’s schools will be on the road throughout the process. But that doesn’t say which half. For example, if Westminster College is the top overall seed at the end of this year, as long as they win, they play at home, in Salt Lake City. If MSU-Northern is the number five seed or lower, but keeps winning, it will have had to go on the road three straight weeks, instead of playing just three games in Butte, like the run the Lights made at the league tourney back in March. Sure, there are pros to hosting tournament games on campus, especially for the fans. They will be the ones who don’t have to worry about fuel prices, well, the home fans anyway. The ones that want to travel and watch their team, well, they might just have to make trips to Butte, Lewiston, Idaho and Salt Lake City in consecutive weeks. I guess if you’re that dedicated, it won’t be so bad. But me, I prefer the tournament when it comes to basketball. The atmosphere is just better and its on a neutral floor. No team has a home edge, and I believe it’s the best way to crown a champion in hoops. The attendance numbers might say different, but I think the conference tournament has been well-attended in my three years of covering it. Carroll College fans travel extremely well and so do Northern fans. Western fans also show up in Butte ever year. Now I know the same cannot be said for Westminster College and LC State fans, but hey, they have both won multiple tournament titles without a home-crowd advantage, so they have proven that the tournament really does decide who the best team is. However, the playoff system can work too. I guess. MSU-Northern head men’s coach Shawn Huse certainly sees an upside. “The playoff system will be a different kind of challenge than the tournament,” Huse said. “I have always voted for a first-round playoff game where the top seeds host the first-round game (in the Frontier Coaches’ meetings). The chance to have a playoff contest in Havre is exciting and serves as motivation to our squad to finish in the top four. It will make regular-season play even more important and interesting as Conference Standings normally change right up through the last weekend.” Now I can understand Huse’s point of view from every angle, but I for one am going to miss the tournament atmosphere. I cover high school and college basketball all winter long, and to me, there’s really nothing like the excitement and drama of a postseason basketball tourney. But I guess I don’t have budgets and hotel bills and gas prices to worry about. Wait, I do because I have gone to Butte to cover the conference tournament for the last three seasons. But I can honestly say, if MSU-N has to travel to play Lewis-Clark State next March in a playoff game, I will probably be staying at home. That trip is just a little out of my reach. The league’s athletic directors and presidents did make a change this spring that I’m all in favor of however. They voted for a no-holds barred rule that if a player wants to transfer to another school within the conference, he or she must sit out a year before being eligible to play for his new school. It’s about time. Now I’ve heard all the reasons players have had in the past for leaving one school to go to another, but inside the league, the merry-go-round of players moving from school-toschool was getting a little ridiculous. While no one can prove it, you can’t say that friends of players from other schools, or “special situations” haven’t led to players leaving programs high and dry for greener pastures. Now, I’m not saying that a player doesn’t have the right to chose the program he or she wants to play for, or the school that gives that player the best educational opportunity. But after making a decision to attend one school, that player should have consequences for breaking the contract with that school. After all, signing a letter of intent is a binding contract, and there should be a penalty for breaking that contract. The NCAA does it, and it’s not just within a conference. At the NCAA Division I level, any transfer, regardless of where he or she goes, has to sit out the next season. So at the NAIA level, the Frontier Conference got this one right, finally. So for better or worse, there will be some changes when the basketball season begins in October. And we’ll just have to wait and see whether or not they have an impact on the 2008-09 campaign. For better or worse, the changes are here and the jury is still out.
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