The Worldwide Leader recently showed some off-season marketing creativity, revealing the brackets for college basketball’s exempt tournaments over two days on ESPN.com. Here are printable eight team brackets that were just released: Maui Invitational, 76 Classic, Old Spice Classic, Diamond Head, Charleston Classic, Puerto Rico Tip-Off. ESPN also revealed the matchups for four-team CBE Classic, Legends Classic, and Coaches vs Cancer. Even though we already knew where the teams were headed, this was a nice opportunity to hype the start to the season. 

In reading various comments on the brackets, the most common sentiment seems to be disappointment in the quality of this year’s fields. I understand where the complaint is coming from. Other than Maui, ESPN is missing a lot of the marquee names this year. North Carolina, Kentucky, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Ohio St., Wisconsin, Michigan St., and Washington are traditional powers, but none are playing in the big ESPN events. Even a loaded Baylor team is headed to Las Vegas, for a less publicized tournament this year.

Teams are still using their tournament exemption. For example, Kentucky is playing in an event that includes South Florida and Penn St. But Kentucky is playing in a less publicized event with weaker BCS teams. It should help John Calipari develop his young players, but does little to get college basketball fans excited. (If you want to know how every BCS team is using its tournament exemption, here is a grid I created earlier this year.)

But there are still plenty of marquee matchups in the ESPN brackets. The Big 12 and Pac-12 should both be wide open this year. Thus a Missouri vs California matchup in the CBE Classic or a Texas A&M vs Arizona matchup in Coaches vs Cancer could be a matchup of conference champions. The same could be said for a Texas vs Vanderbilt matchup in the Legends Classic. (While Texas roster looked ravaged after the draft, they’ve been slowly adding some pieces this summer such as Sterling Gibbs who de-committed from Maryland, and Jaylen Bond who recently joined the team and may become eligible if Pittsburgh releases him.) Add the potential for a Purdue versus Alabama matchup in Puerto Rico, and there are plenty of elite games in the ESPN tournaments.

I also had a few new thoughts when reading ESPN’s bracket announcements. Can you believe that all of the ESPN experts are picking Northwestern to win the Charleston Classic? When was the last time Northwestern was a prohibitive favorite in any college basketball tournament? And how many games can a Mark Turgeon win in Puerto Rico with such a short Maryland bench? But for the most part, I’ve already talked quite a bit about these tournaments. Besides the grid preview, I also discussed compelling storylines from the exempt events last month. Thus instead, of thinking about the tournaments themselves, my dominant thought is that college basketball needs more moments like this to hype the season.

The NFL is the pinnacle of off-season publicity. Every activity has been turned into a highly anticipated event. The NFL hypes roster cuts in the spring. It hypes the first day of free agent signing. The NFL has turned the draft into a multi-day prime time event. The NFL has even turned the schedule release into a multi-day event, first hyping the national TV games, and then releasing the other games later. Then we have the start of training camp which generates plenty of publicity even for teams planning to start John Beck this year. (Sorry Redskins fans.) Then there is the coverage as teams cut-down their roster from 90 players. And finally, the season kicks off with a huge Thursday Night match-up with a conference championship game re-match. Everything, from March to August is designed to keep the NFL in the public eye.

Baseball is not quite as effective in generating off-season buzz, but they clearly have their own success stories. Even with football season at its peak, and numerous basketball games on the schedule, Sports Center will take time to discuss baseball’s winter meetings. It drives me crazy, but off-season marketing works.

College basketball can do so much better. Certainly, some things remain a challenge. Recruiting news is less exciting than a draft, because there is no instant gratification. Elite recruits are committing today to play for a team in 15 months. Even die-hard fans have trouble getting excited about something happening that far in the future. And when you add in the large number of de-commitments, a fact Luke Winn discussed in depth this week for Sports Illustrated, that makes recruiting news even less exciting. It is hard to get excited about a commitment when so many players can change their mind.

But other events could be publicized better. Why not have the major conferences release their schedules one after each other, every day for a week? Right now teams and conferences release their schedules in such a haphazard manner, that no one can really begin to hype the match-ups.

The start of the “training camp” always receives great hype. Midnight Madness is one of the great marketing events of all-time. But the start of the basketball season is not ideal. Having a few teams start off with home cupcakes to get in shape is probably good for the coaches, but not for the fans. The ideal scenario would be to duplicate what the NFL has done. Why not start the season with a Kentucky vs Connecticut game and a VCU vs Butler rematch? Those are the types of games that would get casual fans more excited.

ESPN used some creativity with its two-day bracket release last week. But more can be done. In the world of off-season marketing, college basketball can do better.