This year, the NESCAC reinstated the practice of having men’s and women’s basketball travel together to conference games in order to cut down on travel costs. Game times are now 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday, with the women’s game coming first in even-numbered years (such as 2010) and the men’s game being played first in odd-numbered years. And while this change has resulted in exponentially more work for marginally compensated lackeys such as myself, it’s certainly a very smart move by the conference office to ease the strain on schools’ budgets.

There’s one key problem, though—home and road games alternate every year, which, when combined with the alternating times, can make for quite a bit of monotony. Here’s an example: Wes plays at Amherst, Trinity, Bowdoin, and Colby this season, meaning those four teams will come to Silloway Gym next year. However, the men’s and women’s games will also switch times next year, meaning all four men’s games will have the early time slot. Barring something unforeseen, this pattern will continue for the foreseeable future—every time these four teams come to Middletown, the men’s game will have the early time slot, and every time Wes heads on the road to these schools, the women will have the first game. And that’s exactly the problem with this format.

It’s pretty difficult to deny that of the two Friday time slots, 8 p.m. is far preferable to 6 p.m., when most people are just sitting down to dinner. While there isn’t as much of a marked difference between the two Saturday times, I know that I, for one, would rather go to a game at 4:00, when I’m actually fully awake, then one that starts two hours earlier. Similarly, it’s difficult to argue against the best games receiving the best time slots. But the new NESCAC schedule, in some cases, does just the opposite.

Here’s an example: Tufts hosted a basketball doubleheader against Bowdoin during the second weekend of conference play, on Jan. 23. Now, to be perfectly honest, a women’s basketball game between Bowdoin and Tufts is a much better game than a men’s one. The Bowdoin women have been NESCAC champions all but one year since the tournament was instituted in the 2000-01 season, but Tufts emerged as a serious threat to Bowdoin in recent years and has won three straight against the Polar Bears since falling in the 2007 NESCAC title game. On the other hand, the Tufts men are, to be frank, one of the weaker teams in the NESCAC, having won a combined two games in conference play the last two seasons and currently sitting at 5-15 overall and 1-5 in the NESCAC standings. But because of the current NESCAC schedule, the women’s game will always be stuck with the early time slot in Medford. Similarly, Middlebury-Amherst is a marquee men’s game, with two of the top teams in the country, but while the Amherst women are undefeated (19-0) and ranked first nationally, the Panther women sit just one game over .500 (10-9) and are 2-3 in NESCAC play. But next year, when the games are played in Vermont, the men will go first while the women’s game gets the primo time slot.

There are a number of potential solutions to this dilemma. It’s tempting to suggest a switch to the model used by the University Athletic Association, in which the women’s game is played first on the first night of a conference weekend but the men go first to wrap up the weekend. There’s one key difference between the NESCAC and UAA, though—the latter plays its games on Fridays and Sundays, rather than Fridays and Saturdays (a necessary difference given the UAA’s geographic diversity). It’s not fair to the NESCAC student-athletes to make them play the second game Friday night and then go first on Saturday—imagine if Wesleyan and Tufts had to be back on the court at 2 p.m. Saturday after their four-overtime marathon last Friday. So why not just have the NESCAC shift to a Friday/Sunday schedule, you ask? Yes, the elimination of lodging costs would provide further savings for teams. But I somehow doubt our friends at Colby would enjoy having to take a five-hour trip to Middlebury one night, come back, and then make another five-hour voyage to Williams less than 48 hours later.

Rather, there’s an easier solution to this: have the men’s and women’s game times remain the same for two years and then switch, rather than flipping every other year. Such a two-on, two-off model is already in use in football, in which teams’ season-opening opponents switch every three years (for example, Wesleyan will open at Middlebury next year after two years of playing Tufts)—a necessary move, given that there are ten teams but only eight games. Have the women’s teams go first again next winter, and then have the men do the honor for the next two years after that.

This isn’t the first time men’s and women’s basketball teams have traveled together—this was the model used until the 1996-97 season. Back then, however, the men’s game was always played second, which is the reason the doubleheader scheduling was discontinued. The new NESCAC scheduling does a good job of addressing that concern, but is not perfect. With a few minor modifications, the NESCAC can ensure it protects the fans’ experience as much as its member schools’ budgets.