npb, I know you just started a thread about creating some OOC tournaments (
https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=488868), but you know, I think the idea of these tournaments is pretty fun, and would be a game improvement seble could implement that would likely have nearly universal appeal.
For 4-team tournaments, my own proposal would be as such: the winners of the first pair of games would play each other for the mini-tournament championship, and the losers of the first pair of games would play each other in the consolation game for 3rd place in the mini-tournament - this would essentially mirror the format of the real-life preseason NIT.
Suppose this tournament was played during OOC games 9 and 10. Game #10 would be kept "open" and the opponent would be determined by what happens in game #9... so for example, let's say there's a preseason PIT featuring Texas, UCLA, Villanova, and Alabama. The first pair of games would be, say, Texas vs. Villanova and UCLA vs. Alabama. Villanova and UCLA win their games, they play each other the next game. Texas and Alabama lose, they play each other the next game.
That would be my proposal for these mini-tournaments. Of course, they should occur at neutral sites. There would be other factors that would have to be determined, such as how the match-ups in the first games are decided (by RPI? randomly? previous season's results?). Coaches should be given the option to opt-out of these OOC tournaments at some point (before any match-ups are "set") if they don't want to participate.
I don't know how difficult it would be for seble to create something like this, but personally, I know this would add to my enjoyment of the game quite a bit, and I'd rather see something like this worked on than the recruiting changes that are incoming.
Until then, I guess us coaches will just have to settle for creating our own mini-tournaments.