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DESTIN, Fla. - Kentucky coach John Calipari is known to detest conference tournaments. That makes his suggestion at the SEC spring meetings this week all the more amusing. Calipari proposed the SEC should hold a preseason tournament in November and eliminate the postseason tournament, meaning the regular-season champion would get the SEC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Calipari's idea didn't gain traction among his fellow coaches. But it's an example of both Calipari's hatred of conference tournaments and outside-the-box thinking the SEC may start doing more of to improve basketball. The SEC put only three teams in the NCAA Tournament in three of the past four years.

"You know my stuff is like so ridiculous you say, what?" Calipari said. "I said let's not have a postseason tournament. Let's have a preseason tournament where you're guaranteed three games. So if you lose, you play, you play, and you go somewhere and all the fans come in and you celebrate our league and they're great games to start the year."

Calipari suggested the preseason tournament could be held over one week at two sites in the same city, such as Atlanta. "We're doing it every year, our fans go, 'Let's all go to Atlanta,'" he said.

Calipari's main point: The SEC Tournament doesn't matter anyway. He was highly critical last year when the NCAA selection committee gave Texas A&M a No. 3 seed and Kentucky a No. 4 on the same day the Wildcats beat the Aggies for the SEC championship.

"You guys know I'm not a big proponent of the league tournament," Calipari said. "I hope you know why now. If you lose in the first round of our league tournament, you're out, you're done. That's not the case in most of these other leagues. And if you win our conference tournament, it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't move the needle. ... Tournaments really don't matter. Let's just say that and let's go play, especially in our league."

Calipari declined to discuss other specific suggestions to improve SEC basketball until coaches met with athletic directors, but he did come up with a proposed format a bit later.

He also hinted that one idea is moving the SEC championship game from Selection Sunday to Saturday. That may not be possible as SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said the conference has contractual obligations to play the championship game Sunday. There is an opportunity for continuing dialogue, Sankey said.

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John Calipari says he wants the SEC Tournament moved to November. USATSI

Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said the SEC is at a disadvantage due to some SEC academic requirements. Pearl cited the league's restrictions on junior college transfers that prevents the SEC from recruiting an academic non-qualifier who doesn't spend at least three semesters at the junior college from where he got an associate degree.

"We'd like the NCAA to adopt some really good rules that we have that would place us on equal footing with the rest of other conferences but perhaps if they don't we need to talk to our presidents about the fact to give us the freedom to do some of these things, and if we handle it well, let us keep doing it," Pearl said. "If we don't handle it well then we lose that privilege."

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey didn't sound interested in changing the SEC's rules. "We've never apologized for any rule that might be different in this conference," he said. "We have won national championships in probably every sport except volleyball and soccer since 1998 with more restrictive rules."

The SEC is using former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese as an advisor to improve basketball. Tranghese said the SEC should be able to better get basketball exposure on the SEC Network given its proximity to the other ESPN-owned channels.

"I think the league is capable of doing so much more than they did last year," Tranghese said.

Calipari gave a cross-eyed look when asked how SEC coaches reacted to his preseason tournament idea.

"I don't think we should hold back on anything," Calipari said. "If it's something not quite working, no reason to just blame the kids, the coaches or the ADs or the league or football. Football has nothing to do with this. OK, let's get the formula right and we get six to seven teams in the tournament. We just haven't hit it yet, but we're not afraid to try to some stuff. Mike is a great sounding board because some of the stuff we had talked about that was a no they did and he knew how it helped."