COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jordan Sibert walked through the tunnel following Dayton’s victory over Providence and turned right, heading through the floor-level concourse toward the locker room.
There, Sibert listened to coach Archie Miller’s post-game pep talk, answered questions from reporters for 20 minutes and showered. The senior guard changed into a sweatsuit, boarded a bus, returned to the team hotel, sat through another brief team meeting, grabbed something to eat and retreated to his room, where he finally put his head down on his pillow and fell asleep.
The alarm clock on his nightstand showed it was nearly 3:30 a.m.
“I’ve slept in gyms,” Sibert said. “I’ve left gyms at six in the morning, five in the morning, but never after a game, being one in the morning. That was crazy.”
It was 1:09 a.m. when the Flyers emerged with a 66-53 victory, by far the latest finish of any of the 16 NCAA tournament games beginning on Friday. Originally given a 9:57 p.m. tip time, the game began at 10:53 p.m. because the three earlier games at Nationwide Arena ran long.
More early-round games have begun after 7 p.m. local time this year than in any of the three previous tournaments governed by the NCAA’s current television agreement, which spreads games out between CBS, TNT, TBS and TruTV.
Sixteen games — not counting Sunday’s games, when Maryland and West Virginia were scheduled for a 8:40 p.m. tip time — began later than most college basketball games begin during the regular season. Four of those games began after 10 p.m. locally, with another getting underway at 9:59 p.m.
Saturday night’s game between Notre Dame and Butler, in Pittsburgh, began at 10:04 p.m., went to overtime and ended at 12:25 a.m. The game between Kentucky and Hampton, also delayed by overtime, began at 10:15 p.m., and the game between Gonzaga and North Dakota State began at 10:10 p.m.
Three minutes after Dayton’s Dyshawn Pierre sent the opening tip back to Scoochie Smith, that game between Gonzaga and North Dakota State — played in Seattle — went to halftime.
“Now you’ve got to remember this: It’s all for the betterment of the student-athlete,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins deadpanned Saturday afternoon. “I’m not sure who did that scheduling. I’m sure it was TV, or they had something to do with it. But I’m just — it just tickles me to death that we’re doing this for the student-athletes. It’s all for the betterment of the student-athlete.”
The NCAA has adhered to the same start times at each session since the television contract kicked in prior to the 2012 tournament. For example, the first game on Thursday and Friday, regardless of site, has always begun at 12:15 p.m. Eastern time.
Oddly, the first game on Friday was played in Omaha, Nebraska, with meant it began at 11:15 a.m. local time. No game in the last four years has started before 11 a.m., but 10 games have tipped off before noon.
“Our valued partners at CBS and Turner determine the TV windows in which the games will be played,” David Worlock, the director of media coordination for the NCAA, wrote in an e-mail. “It’s unfortunate when game lengths cause games to be played later than scheduled, particularly with late local starts, but it is a challenge to play 16 games at four sites across the country.”
One reason the backlog affected Dayton and Providence on Friday is because five of the eight venues the NCAA booked are in the Eastern Time Zone, and the television times remained the same as in previous years. The last time that happened was in 2006 — yet no game at those five locations began after 9:45 p.m.
Coincidentally, only three Eastern Time Zone sites will host a subregional next March, with four chosen in 2017 and three to host in 2018. That decision wasn’t a response to the late start times; the NCAA announced those sites in November.
“The disadvantage of playing the game isn’t actually the game,” Dayton coach Archie Miller said. “It’s leaving the arena and arriving at your hotel at 2:30 in the morning. When you have the turnarounds in the tournament, that’s something that you don’t want to have to deal with, because you know at 2:30, they’re not able to sleep right away.”
Dayton’s participation in the tournament has already been heavily scrutinized, with the Flyers, runners-up in the Atlantic 10, beginning their run in one of the “First Four” games at their home arena before playing their next two games just over an hour east of their campus.
Miller doesn’t think that the start times affect the players — “If you told them it was at midnight they’re going to be ready to go at midnight,” he said — but the logistics can be cramped. Rather than having players awake by 10 a.m. on Saturday to begin their preparation for Oklahoma, Miller had them sleep an extra hour, then dove right into analyzing the Sooners’ personnel.
Regardless of Sunday’s outcome, Dayton will have completed a stretch of playing six games in 10 days. That pales in comparison to what some players experience annually on the AAU circuit, when tournaments can feature multiple games in one day over a weekend.
“But, you know, it’s basketball,” Sibert said. “We can’t control it, and you know, we stick together. We stick together. We can’t allow each other to even think about being tired. Just keep moving forward.”
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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