Sep. 1—Every summer CBS Sports runs a "Candid Coaches" series where they give college basketball coaches anonymity to share their opinions on different questions facing the game.
The and are a yearly staple. The results of those polls included David Mirkovic in the former, with the Illinois sophomore ranked fourth behind Florida's Thomas Haugh, Michigan State's Jeremy Fears Jr. and Vanderbilt's Tyler Tanner. The Illini popped up in the latter, too, checking in as the fifth-best team behind Florida, Duke, Tennessee and Connecticut.
Monday's focused on the college basketball schedule. Teams can play 32 games this season — an expansion of a single game that eliminated the necessity of playing in a multi-team event to make it happen.
The question posed by CBS Sports was: "How long should the college hoops regular season be?"
Sixteen percent of the coaches polled voted for 40 or more games. It made me wonder if Illinois coach Brad Underwood was among that group.
An expanded regular season is one Underwood has broached on multiple occasions.
"I wish the league would play 34 league games and just play everybody twice," Underwood said after Illinois' loss at Michigan State in January with the rematch coming in February because the Spartans were one of three teams the Illini got home-and-home series with last season.
"Let's have a real league that plays everybody twice," Underwood continued. "Wouldn't that be fun? You don't think the fans in here didn't enjoy that? How about the fans in Champaign? We get to have that game, too. Let's play 34 league games and we all play each other twice. That would be fun."
"College basketball is truly the only sport — professional or collegiate — that's making a lot of money and hasn't expanded," Underwood said. "I think we have some opportunities to do that. I would love to see a true round robin — 34 league games — and play 8-10 non-league games. I think it's great for the game.
"I'm the biggest believer. The game of basketball has never been better. We've got great players playing in it. We've got young people making better decisions about going to the NBA and staying in college because of NIL. I think the game is in a great, great spot, and we just need to keep expanding it."
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