NEW YORK -- Eight teams are here for the opening of the season. But it was supposed to be four.

Texas, Syracuse and Alabama would have tipped off the 2002-03 season in Manhattan on Thursday night regardless of a judge's ruling this summer on exempted tournaments. Maryland possibly would have been the fourth team in the AT&T Wireless Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer at Madison Square Garden. The foursome would have played two games, one each night, crowning a winner the second night.

But there was a slight problem. Maryland, Texas and Alabama didn't have an exemption left in their 2-in-4 cycle under the NCAA rules for playing in exempt events. All three schools knew this when they discussed being in the event, but all waited to see if a lawsuit against the NCAA, dealing primarily on anti-trust issues, would result in the 2-in-4 rule being overturned. They waited for months as the case went through arbitration. Then, in July, a federal judge in Columbus, Ohio, ruled that he wanted to see if the tournaments would actually fold if the 2-in-4 rule remained for the third of four seasons.

"Don't get us started as to why this isn't an exempt event,'' said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim.

There might not be a reason to wait for a June 23, 2003, court date to see the effect of the ruling. Eleven of the 28 certified exempted tournaments shut down since the ruling, unable to fill their fields with teams that had an exemption. The number of teams participating went from 178 to 108 and the number of games being played dropped from 251 to 144.

Two- to four-game exempted tournaments count as only one game on a team's overall 28-game schedule. Non-exempt tournaments like this event count as one game. Exempted tournaments create neutral site environments, allow mid-major schools a shot at beating high-major programs (see Ball State beating UCLA and Kansas in Maui last season) and provide officials, players and coaches a chance to experiment with new rules.

The only reason the organizer The Gazelle Group, ESPN and Madison Square Garden were able to still have the CVC Thursday and Friday is because so many teams still had open games on their schedules while they waited out the ruling. Texas and Alabama are still here, joining Syracuse, Memphis, Villanova, Marquette, Oklahoma and Georgia in a unique two-day event. The tournament is simply two nights of doubleheaders to tip off of the season -- with each team playing one game. But it wouldn't have happened at all if the ruling was made earlier in the spring and most of these teams filled their schedules.

"We'd rather play in a tournament, players would much rather have a chance to do that versus one game,'' Boeheim said. "New York City is probably the only place you could get teams of this quality for just one game. These teams aren't going to go to Nashville to play in this event.''

The uniqueness of opening up the season in New York, on national television for one game intrigued coaches like John Calipari of Memphis, Tom Crean of Marquette and Kelvin Sampson of Oklahoma, although he has said he would have rather come to New York for two games instead of one.

"We wouldn't want to give up two games to come here,'' Calipari said. "But this is a great event. We're happy it's just one game.''

Alabama's Mark Gottfried, like Boeheim, wanted to play in two games here.

"But no one is going to go home with a bad loss,'' Sampson said.

The Gazelle Group is in year two of a 10-year contract with MSG for these early dates, year five of six with ESPN. The early start date is independent of the exemption issue. The regular season starts for the majority of teams on Nov. 22. But the Gazelle Group's contracts with MSG, ESPN and its sponsors are subject to change if the Gazelle Group can't get high-profile teams up to the standards that all demand.

Getting eight teams, similar to the once ESPN-sponsored Great Eight in Chicago, to New York to open the season is seen as a coup. Finding eight more next season willing to do this could be a tougher chore. Also, the cost of housing eight teams and the marketing challenges could make it a tough go in 2003. If the 2-in-4 rule were lifted, then the event would likely go back to a four-team format.

"We think this is two great days of college basketball ahead for us,'' said Rick Giles, the president of the Gazelle Group. "But with the 2-in-4 rule we can't have a tournament format. Teams can't afford to give up two games on a neutral court in a non-exempt tournament. If we can get the 2-in-4 rule lifted then we would return to a tournament format and financially that makes a significant difference in the amount of money we can raise for the cause.''

Gonzaga is in the event next year, but the Zags are also in the Preseason NIT. If the 2-in-4 rule isn't overturned, then Gonzaga won't have an exemption remaining in its four-year cycle and must withdraw from the Preseason NIT.

The issue gets even murkier with some conference commissioners pushing to get rid of all exempt tournaments and just have a set number of games, say 30, for teams to use as they see fit. If this were to occur, only a few tournaments would survive with high-profile teams unwilling to play three to four games on a neutral court.

Coaches want these tournaments to exist, and so does television. The season-opening tipoff event at MSG is reformatted for eight teams for this one season. It worked, but the question remains whether or not it can be done again if the 2-in-4 rule isn't overturned.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.