by Jack Bogaczyk, Sports Editor , Charleston Daily Mail

It's not the first potential move by new Commissioner John Marinatto, whose first day in charge in the Providence, R.I., office succeeding conference "lifer" Mike Tranghese was Wednesday.

Nor is there any suggestion of going to back to a 12-team field and leaving the bottom four home from the Madison Square Garden party.

That, in this press row veteran's opinion, would have been the best move.

No, this tweak for a five-day tournament is a suggestion from the coaches. If approved - and the Big East university presidents will likely yea or nay it before the end of the summer - the top four seeds would play on the first day of the event.

In the first 16-team field this past March, the top four seeds (Louisville, Pitt, Connecticut, Villanova) didn't play until Day 3 (Thursday). The bottom eight seeds played on the opening day, and the winners of those four games faced seeds 5-8 the following day.

The coaches are proposing now that getting the double bye isn't really an advantage, particularly if a team seeded 5-8 plays a quality game the day before and gets its tournament "game face" on for a quarterfinal against a team that has been sitting.

That scenario played out in March, when two of the top four Big East seeds fell in their openers against teams that got the bugs out the previous day.

Seventh-seeded West Virginia ousted Notre Dame in the second round, then topped double-bye foe Pitt, the tournament's No. 2 seed. No. 6 Syracuse eliminated Seton Hall, then took out third-seeded UConn in the historic six-overtime quarterfinal. No. 4 Villanova squeezed past No. 5 Marquette on Dwayne Anderson's buzzer-beating layup.

(UConn and Pitt still managed No. 1 NCAA Tournament regional seeds, but that was as much a testament to the upper-echelon depth of the Big East, which went 18-6 in the NCAA, with five teams in the Sweet Sixteen.)

What the Big East coaches want, they usually get. They're the ones who buttonholed the presidents into approving the expansion to 16 teams in the first place - a move to which Tranghese was publicly opposed, and said so.

So, don't be surprised if the Big East format is tweaked for 2010.

What the coaches are advancing now is that the top four seeds play the bottom four teams in Tuesday's openers (1-16, 2-15, 3-14, 4-13). Then, on Day 2, the first-day winners would sit out, and the matchups would be 5-12, 6-11, 7-10, 8-9.

That would leave eight survivors for the Thursday quarterfinals ... and there are positives to this potential change as the Big East eyes NCAA Selection Sunday, too.

First, you wouldn't have an NCAA bubble team, like a No. 9 Big East seed, embarrassingly falling to a No. 16 seed and falling out of Big Bracket consideration in the format change (see last-place DePaul taking out No. 9 Cincinnati this year).

Also, if a 10 seed beat a 7, for example, it's going to make that victor look much better to the NCAA selectors than if it beat a 15 for starters. It's the same potential boost for a 9 over an 8, rather than a 9 downing a 16. It just looks better to the eyes and RPI.

So, don't be surprised if the Big East dribbles into New York with a different bracket plan next March. That's the kind of thing that happens when a double bye is the same as bye-bye.

Contact Sports Editor Jack Bogaczyk at jackb@daily mail.com or 304-348-7949.

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