With any new idea comes the uncertainty of success.

The Division II Men’s Basketball Committee experienced that anxiety when it decided to add an all-star game featuring 20 senior student-athletes to the Elite Eight celebration in 2006.

But feedback from the participants after the inaugural game has spurred the committee, which met June 5-8 in Indianapolis, to make the contest a permanent fixture.

The schedule at the Division II finals site features the quarterfinal games on Wednesday, followed by the semifinals on Thursday. The all-star game, which was co-sponsored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, will be conducted on Friday night, and the championship game will be broadcast live on CBS Saturday afternoon.

The MassMutual Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, will host the event for the second consecutive year.

Originally, the all-star game was added to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Division II Men’s Basketball Championship.

"We asked the NABC to help us with some of the finances," said committee member Butch Raymond. "We worked with them and the host, Springfield, to put all the pieces together."

The senior student-athletes chosen to compete in the game came from institutions that didn’t advance to the Elite Eight, and they represented all eight regions.

"You just never know how a new project is going to go," said Raymond, the commissioner of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. "The game was held at the Basketball Hall of Fame, and the students were just in awe of getting an opportunity to play in that setting. Many of their coaches came with them. It couldn’t have worked out much better in our first try."

The committee doesn’t want to rest on that success, though. Among the enhancements planned for the 2007 championship is a coaches’ clinic during the day before the all-star game is played. The clinic will feature a keynote speaker, as well as the coaches of the two teams eliminated in the semifinals.

"The Basketball Hall of Fame has a great facility in which to hold this event," Raymond said. "Then we can walk across the hallway into the gymnasium and use that as a clinic site to show examples of how to break down certain drills or other aspects of the game."

In addition to planning for the ancillary events surrounding the all-star game, the committee viewed videoconference presentations from cities bidding to host the 2008 and 2009 championships. Representatives from Springfield; Denver; and Mankato, Minnesota, made presentations. The committee expects to forward a recommendation to the Division II Championships Committee later this month.