The 2016–17 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 11, 2016. The first tournament was the 2K Sports Classic, and the season will end with the Final Four in Glendale, Arizona on April 3, 2017. Practices officially began on September 30, 2016.
The only rule change for the regular season was allowing coaches to ask for timeouts in situations of inbounds on offense or defense. Coaches are still not permitted to call timeouts in live-ball situations.
The NCAA approved a number of experimental rule changes for use in the 2017 postseason NIT:
Team fouls will be reset to zero at the 10:00 mark of each half. This effectively divides the game into quarters for purposes of team fouls.
The "one-and-one" foul shot will disappear from the game. Instead, starting with the fifth total foul in each 10-minute period, non-shooting fouls by the defensive team will result in two free throws, with the only exception being administrative technical fouls. This mirrors foul counting in NCAA women's basketball, which has been played in quarters since the 2015–16 season.
In a feature unique in the college game, but similar to that used by the NBA and WNBA, overtime will be considered a separate period for purposes of accumulating team fouls. The team foul limit will be 3 per overtime period, with all non-shooting team fouls thereafter by the defense resulting in two free throws.
The shot clock will be reset to 20 seconds when the ball is inbounded in the frontcourt.
March 10 – The Ivy League announced it will add a conference tournament beginning in the 2016–17 season. Previously, the regular season champion earned the automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.
April 20 – The NCAA announces its Academic Progress Rate (APR) sanctions for the 2016–17 school year. A total of 23 programs in 13 sports are declared ineligible for postseason play due to failure to meet the required APR benchmark, including the following two Division I men's basketball teams:Alcorn State
Savannah State
November 2 – The Associated Press preseason All-American team was released. Duke guard Grayson Allen was the leading vote-getter (61 votes). Joining him on the team were California forward Ivan Rabb (55 votes), Villanova guard Josh Hart (53), Oregon forward Dillon Brooks (30) and Iowa State guard Monte Morris (24).
November 22 – Fort Wayne upset 3rd-ranked Indiana for the first win over a ranked team in the program's history.
December 5 – The Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) announced that North Alabama would move from the Division II Gulf South Conference and join the ASUN in 2018.
January 2 – Duke announced that head coach Mike Krzyzewski would undergo surgery on January 6 to remove a fragment of a herniated disc in his lower back. He went on a medical leave following the Blue Devils' January 4 game against Georgia Tech and was expected to be out for about four weeks. Associate head coach Jeff Capel took over for Krzyzewski during his recuperation.
January 5 – Before Austin Peay's game against Tennessee Tech, Peay announced that Dave Loos, the Governors' head coach since 1990, would take a medical leave effective immediately. Loos, who had undergone surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his colon in July 2016, has since been undergoing chemotherapy for a cancerous lymph node found during that procedure. Assistant Jay Bowen served as interim head coach until Loos returned to the sidelines on January 19.
January 13 – The Western Athletic Conference announced that California Baptist would move from the Division II Pacific West Conference and join the WAC in 2018.
January 24 – For only the third time since the AP Poll was first compiled for college basketball in 1948, three of the top four teams lost on the same day. First, #2 Kansas lost 85–69 at West Virginia. Shortly thereafter, top-ranked Villanova lost 74–72 at Marquette. Finally, #4 Kentucky lost 82–80 at Tennessee.
January 26 – The Summit League announced that North Dakota, currently a member of the Big Sky Conference, would join the league in 2018.
February 4
Six teams in the AP Top 10 lose, tying the poll-era record for most losses by top-10 teams in one day. Additionally, it was the first day in poll history in which two of the top three teams (Baylor and Kansas) lost at home to unranked opponents.
Krzyzewski returns from his medical leave to the Duke bench, with the Blue Devils defeating Pittsburgh 72–64.
Milestones and records
During the season, the following players reached the 2000 career point milestone – NJIT guard Damon Lynn, Valparaiso forward Alec Peters, North Florida guard Dallas Moore, Santa Clara guard Jared Brownridge, and VMI guard Q. J. Peterson.
November 11 – NJIT's Damon Lynn surpasses Chris Flores as the school's all-time leading scorer for their Division I era.
January 3 – Jacksonville's Darius Dawkins made 13-of-17 three-pointers en route to 41 points. He set both school and Atlantic Sun Conference single game three-point scoring records in the process, which were previously 10 and 11, respectively.
February 11 – Villanova head coach Jay Wright won his 500th game in Division I. The Wildcats defeated Xavier 73–57.
February 16 – Austin Peay head coach Dave Loos also won his 500th game in Division I. The Governors defeated Eastern Illinois 85–80.
Only one school joined a new conference for 2016–17:
South Dakota opened the new Sanford Coyote Sports Center. The completion of the 6,000-seat venue saw the South Dakota men's basketball, women's basketball, and women's volleyball teams move out of the considerably larger DakotaDome, which remains home to football, track & field, and swimming & diving. The first men's basketball game in the new arena was an exhibition on November 4 against NCAA Division III Loras, with the Coyotes winning 106–76; the first official men's game was the second leg of a November 13 doubleheader with the Coyotes women's team, with the men defeating Bowling Green 78–72.
This is expected to be the last season for two Division I teams in their now-current venues:
DePaul, located in Chicago, will leave its current off-campus home of Allstate Arena in suburban Rosemont, Illinois for a new off-campus arena in the city proper. Wintrust Arena, a 10,000-seat venue under construction at the McCormick Place convention center, is planned to open for the 2017–18 season.
NJIT will leave one on-campus venue for another. The aging Fleisher Center (capacity 1,600) is set to be replaced by the Wellness and Events Center (capacity 3,500) for the 2017–18 season.
The top 25 from the AP and USA Today Coaches Polls.
An upset is a victory by an underdog team. In the context of NCAA Men's Division I Basketball, this generally constitutes an unranked team defeating a team currently ranked in the Top 25. This list will highlight those upsets of ranked teams by unranked teams as well as upsets of #1 teams. Rankings are from the AP poll.
Conference winners and tournaments
Each of the 32 Division I athletic conferences ends its regular season with a single-elimination tournament. The team with the best regular-season record in each conference is given the number one seed in each tournament, with tiebreakers used as needed in the case of ties for the top seeding. The winners of these tournaments receive automatic invitations to the 2017 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. This will be the first season in which the Ivy League holds a conference tournament.
Several teams changed coaches during and after the season.
