Mark Pope calls for college basketball to expand to a 40-game season

Depending on if you play in an early-season tournament, college basketball teams are playing anywhere from 29 to 31 games. With that, Kentucky’s Mark Pope wants to see an additional 10 or so on the schedule moving forward.

At his press conference on Friday, Pope made his case for 40 games in the regular season. That would allow programs to account for all the changes to their team in the offseason and make up some finances for revenue-sharing through extra games scheduled.

“So, the season flies by every year. It’s, like, it’s just not long enough,” Pope said. “The season has gone by really, really fast.”

“I’m, you know, I’m on this – I just think it’s time to expand our season out to a 40-game season. Like, 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’t make any sense that we’re at a 31-game season. It makes no sense. I’m a massive advocate – maybe the only one in the world. But we need to expand the season to 40 games.”

To be fair, that is a lot of games. 40 is about the number of games that most teams in the national championship reach after going through their conference’s bracket and then the NCAA Tournament. Still, from the preseason to conference play, Pope had reasons for why every part of the year before the postseason could use some additional games.

For the exhibitions, it would allow teams to get a better feel for one another rather than sorting some of that out in the games that count. Then, in the non-conference, a few more games would allow for better matchups in the sport and ones that could make some additional money for their departments.

“I’d love to, you know – I’m so excited about this freedom to have Division I opponents in exhibitions. I don’t mind going to four exhibition games now with the freedom to do that,” Pope said. “I think it, I think it gives you the opportunity to really grow and test your team in a, 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, and so I think, the more games we get, the better product we’re going to have as we go. So, I’d love to see that.”

“I’d love the non-conference to, to have a couple more games because it gives you the freedom to go schedule better games,” added Pope. “All of us right now as, as athletic departments are, are going to be more and more financially-challenged as the revenue-sharing, if the settlement goes through. So it’s a way for us to actually increase revenue significantly and have the freedom to actually, um, go find a couple more great games that really impactful.”

Finally, in conference, adding a few more games would level the playing field for a lot of leagues. That just applies more to the smaller one as many of the power ones couldn’t do much more considering their respective size’s post-expansion.

“Then, you know, I think it, it makes sense to add a couple games into the, into the conference regular season,” said Pope. “You know, it gives some conferences a chance to get to more of an even schedule in conference, which I think it a bonus. I think it’s great when you can play home-and-away with every team every year. It just adds that real spice and continuity to conferences. Some of the conferences are too big to probably get to that number. But the more of those, you know, home-and-home situations you get in conference? I think it makes conferences better. I think it’s better for fans, better for teams and better for rivalries.”

More college basketball is better for all fans for the game but finding the right number is important if they’re going to. Regardless of that total, though, Pope is very much in favor for it as a win for all involved in college ‘hoops.

“All those things, you know, are important,” Pope said. “I do feel like it’s a no-miss scenario. I think it would be really positive and I’m advocating for it, in case I didn’t say that already.”