Back in 2003, the NCAA tournament selection committee erroneously advised BYU to play a Sunday game at the next weekend, time which violated the Mormon institution’s policy that prohibits contest on Sundays.
At the moment, the message in the committee was that it wouldn’t happen again.
On Sunday, however, the committee set itself at precisely the exact same bind when it put BYU from the 2021 NCAA championship’s East Region in a mount which, as currently organized , would place the Cougars to play with a Sweet 16 match on March 28, a Sunday.
The NCAA has declared a contingency plan, but that could swap the East and Midwest areas’ playing dates when the Cougars win two matches and also make the Sweet 16, which the group last attained in 2011.
The move would suggest that the East teams, now scheduled to play with their Sweet 16 and Elite Eight matches on March 28 and March 30, a Sunday along with a Tuesday, could swap with the Midwest Region, that includes matches scheduled for March 27 and March 29, Saturday and Monday. If BYU reaches the Sweet 16, the East’s games could proceed to those dates to adapt the Cougars — a move which would lower the area’s days of rest between games to four — and also the Midwest would play with the Sunday-Tuesday stretch, enabling those teams to obtain another day of rest between games (six).
“If they don’t, then there would be no change to dates for any groups for regionals.”
Both of the other areas wouldn’t be impacted by BYU’s improvement into the Sweet 16.
Mark Pope’s Cougars directed Gonzaga by 12 points at halftime of the matchup at the West Coast Conference championship a week.
BYU has made 37 percent of its 3-point efforts this year.
Throughout its conflict with the NCAA within its Sunday rule over 20 decades back, BYU said contest on such day would violate spiritual principles supported by the establishment.
“The NCAA has established that universities and colleges shouldn’t need to forfeit athletic opportunities so as to keep their spiritual tenets,” said BYU president Merrill J. Bateman in 1998, when the NCAA reversed route and reinstituted its dedication to honoring BYU’s rule.
