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College Basketball’s Start: Step One-Pick A Date
There is still some work to be done, but you got to start somewhere.
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Both basketball oversight committees have settled on a date, now cross your fingers folks and don’t uncross them until September 16th.
This week football writers here at Mountain West Wire began to release “What I’ll Miss About (insert your favorite school here) Football” pieces, which stood out immediately on my timeline. College football would have been in full swing around the country this week if we weren’t still waste/ankle deep (depending on your location) in a global pandemic at the moment.
So as you can imagine, those of us who spend the months of November to April watching college basketball like other television channels didn’t exist during that time, are getting a little nervous.
But no need to fear as there seems to be a plan in motion by NCAA stakeholders to have a season played this winter, and it may even start somewhat on time. Though news has been a little scarce on the college hoops side of things, slowly over the last month news of forthcoming brain storming sessions from NCAA stakeholders gives us hope.
As it was announced today that a meeting held by the men’s and women’s basketball oversight committee’s produced a proposed date for a start to the 2020-2021 season. The date that will be pitched to the Division I Council on September 16th will be November 25th, the day before Thanksgiving.
Though as reported earlier this month, there were four dates to be considered during that aforementioned meeting, folks have been advised to be “flexible” in the coming months. As the currently decided start date given may not stand with the ever-changing landscape of our daily lives.
Although a start during fall break seems to be the favorite for folks around the country, apparently many were advocating for a normal start to the season on November 10th. While the Pac-12 is in a very unique situation at the moment, proposed an “optimistic” start date of December 4th with an even later option of sometime in January still on the table.
Some other issues to be discussed in the coming weeks is a date practices would begin. If November 25th becomes a concrete date, the first practices around the country would be held as soon as October 14th. This along with game minimums and game maximums, which are set to be a tall task to tackle alone. Given conferences around the country will have to all be on board with non-conference games being played and in what fashion. With many high major conferences prepared to play non-conference only schedules, leaving questions galore for the NCAA tournament selection process. But a million logistical questions aside for now, we have a date.
So relax folks, things appear to be moving along according to the new yet very malleable plan that we’ve been given. So stay tuned with the rest of us, as we aim for a start date sometime in 2020 so we can keep March Madness played in March. Granted everyone involved can play the games while staying safe of course.
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