NCAA Redefining Neutral Site Games

New rules uses game management as determination for RPI purposes

Jan. 1, 2008

By Jerry Palm

Special to CSTV.com

	JERRY PALM Jerry runs the web sites CollegeRPI.com and CollegeBCS.com and a CSTV.com analyst. E-mail here!

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The NCAA has completely changed the rules that determine what is a home game for RPI purposes and what is a neutral site game. I learned of these changes when a document detailing the new rules landed in my inbox this week. Judging from some of the e-mail that followed after I posted them on my own site, many schools are just learning about them as well, even though the document I received is dated Sept. 29th.

A search of the NCAA website earlier this week didn't reveal the new rules, but I did find the old ones, which were last updated this past July.

While I'm not terribly fond of the idea of changing the rules once the season starts (I realize the end of September is before the start of the season, but the rules aren't really changed until the people affected are notified), I think the new rules are more fair than the old ones.

The old standard used the location of the game and the schools involved to determine the home team. If a team played a game in its metropolitan area (a vaguely defined concept) against a team not from that area, it was a home game for the local team every time. So when Butler played Indiana and Notre Dame in Indianapolis -- the Bulldogs' hometown -- last year in the Preseason Tip-off NIT, those were home games for the Bulldogs, even though those were very hostile crowds. It was not always easy to determine who the home teams were, and even the NCAA Basketball Committee, the ultimate arbiter, struggled with it. Those Butler games were originally ruled home games, then switched to neutral site games, then switched back to home games during last season.

With the new rules, game location is nearly irrelevant and game management means everything. The first rule is that if you play on your home floor, you are always (emphasis mine) the home team. "Home floor" is undefined, and when I asked the NCAA for a definition, I didn't really get anything beyond the school's "traditional" home floor. Some schools like Connecticut and St. John's have more than one.

The second rule says that if a team, "rents the facility, arranges for officials, controls the tickets and is responsible for game operations, it is the home team regardless of the opponent."

Each of the 10 rules listed have examples, and the example for that second rule is pretty interesting. It says that if Wisconsin were to make all the arrangements to play Marquette in the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, then Wisconsin would be the home team, "despite the fact that Marquette is playing in its home city." The example does not note that not only would Marquette be playing in its home city, but on its home floor, which is the Bradley Center. That would imply that both teams would qualify as home teams under the rules. I checked with the NCAA on this case and was told that indeed Wisconsin would be the home team, meaning that the word "always" in rule No. 1 isn't exactly correct.

Now you might think that would never happen. Nobody in their right mind would schedule a "home" game on someone else's home floor, right? Wrong.

The Palestra in Philadelphia is the home floor of the University of Pennsylvania, but it is also a secondary home floor for Saint Joseph's. The Hawks will play four home games there this season -- Penn State, Villanova, Temple and LaSalle -- but will also play two "road" games there. One is against Penn, the usual tenant of that building, but the other is against another city school, Drexel, which is taking care of all the game management functions for that game.

There are eight other "rules" in the document, but none of them are independent situations. Rather, they are merely other examples of how to apply the first two rules.

These rules are more fair because now some games like Illinois vs. Arizona in Chicago will be ruled as home games for the Fighting Illini, which more accurately reflects the environment. The floor is neutral only in the sense that neither team plays there much, but it's a big Illini crowd. However, not all games like that will be home games. Xavier played Kansas State this week in Cincinnati, but not on its home floor. However, that is considered a neutral site game because the arena put the game together and handled all the game management functions, not Xavier.

It will not be obvious to the casual observer which team is the home team in cases like that. I only know about the Xavier-Kansas State ruling because someone at Xavier clued me in, and I know about the Illinois-Arizona game because I was there.

Other than being more fair, the other reason for going to these rules was to make it possible for everybody to know in advance how games should be counted. Under the old rules, many determinations were made after the fact. There may still be some done that way, but now most cases can be dealt with before the season even starts.

We'll have to see what some of the unintended consequences of this rule are. I suspect one will be that schools will arrange for third parties to serve as game management for their home games away from home like that Illinois-Arizona game, so they can still count as neutral site games. I'm sure there will be other loopholes as well.