SAVANNAH, Georgia — The Division I Management Council approved of a concept at its April 10 meeting that would redefine the length of the men’s and women’s basketball seasons and eliminate the “two-in-four rule.”

But it will be up to the Board of Directors to decide just how.

The Council is forwarding to the Board a couple of options in that regard. The base proposal allows for either 28 regular-season games or 27 regular-season games and the ability to exempt participation in one qualifying multiple-team event, such as the NIT Season Tip-Off or the Maui Invitational, for example, once per year. The Management Council, however, pushed for a 29-regular-season game option because members think it reduces the difference in the number of games played by teams that do and do not participate in multiple-team events.

Under the base proposal, for example, teams that elect to exempt a multiple-team event (which can include up to four games) must count that event as one contest against the maximum. Thus, participation in a four-game multiple-team event could result in a total of 31 regular-season games (if the event is not an elimination-style tournament). Teams that are unable to or choose not to participate in a multiple-team event could play up to 28 regular-season games.

Council members, though, felt that giving teams that did not participate in multiple-team events a 29-game regular-season allowance reduces the gap in the maximum number of games that all teams could play, while still maintaining the incentive to play in the multiple-team events. They also argued that teams that choose not to participate in multiple-team events also could benefit from the revenue an additional home game would provide.

Both proposals also:

• Eliminate the NCAA basketball event certification program.
• Establish the second Friday in November as the official start date for the season (both for regular-season games and multiple-team events).
• Require multiple-team events to be sponsored by a Division I institution or conference, be held only in the United States or one of its territories, and end not later than 14 days after the first game of the event (a waiver process is in place for existing tournaments in women’s basketball that are outside of the U.S. and its territories).
• Continue to consider foreign tours separately (in other words, rules regarding foreign tours and multiple-team events remain mutually exclusive).

Both options also allow teams to exempt their conference tournaments, which means teams in conferences that do not accept all members into their postseason tournament would no longer have to in effect hold a spot open for those tournaments.

Current rules provide for a 28-game regular season for everyone but limit teams to participation in multiple-team events to twice in a four-year period. The only restriction under the new proposals in that regard is that a team cannot play in the same event more than once in a four-year period.

The new legislation also continues to allow teams to participate in more than one multiple-team event in a season as long as it exempts one of them. What is unresolved, though, is whether teams must declare in advance which multiple-team event they want to exempt. For example, if Team A plays in two multiple-team events in the same year  — one of which is a round-robin format and the other an elimination-style tournament — and it loses in the first round of the latter, the obvious desire in that instance would be to exempt the four-game event.

Council members noted that the new legislation might encourage events sponsors to employ the round-robin format to be more attractive to institutions. They also pointed out that eliminating the event certification program could lead to a proliferation of multiple-team events, but that the restrictions on repeat participation in a given event may better accomplish what the two-in-four rule was meant to do in the first place, which was to increase the diversity of teams playing in the exempted events. In that vein, market forces probably will keep the multiple-team events at a manageable number, since the higher-quality events will attract better fields.

The Board of Directors must consider both the 28- and 29-game options at its April 27 meeting before either becomes effective August 1. In the past, presidents have been concerned about legislation that could be perceived as expanding the playing and practice seasons, though the Board did approve a 12th regular-season game in Division I-A football last year and is poised to do so for Division I-AA this year (since the Council approved and forwarded legislation in that regard).

If the Board reaches a solution on the basketball issue, it would culminate years of deliberation about how best to incorporate exempted/certified contests into the regular season. The membership tabled legislation in 2000 that would have counted every game, then proposed legislation in 2004 that revised the playing and practice seasons in several sports. The Management Council deferred action each time because the two-in-four rule was mired in litigation (plaintiffs claimed the rule restricted trade).

But two events paved the way for the Council to proceed. First, a federal court ruled against plaintiffs in the two-in-four case and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to hear an appeal of that decision. Second, a related case — the lawsuit from the Metropolitan Basketball Association (MIBA) that challenged the NCAA’s authority to preclude schools from choosing their postseason participation options — also was settled in August 2005 when the NCAA acquired the National Invitation Tournaments that the MIBA previously oversaw.

Both allowed the Council to move legislation forward regarding basketball. The other proposals concerning alternatives for additional sports were not moved.