NCAA IDEA ON BBALL SCHEDULE

[raminwarwick]

Todays Sports Illustrated internet article concerning a change in this years schedule

NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt told Sports Illustrated on Monday that he has proposed moving season-opening games from Nov. 10 to Oct. 27, with perhaps a corresponding acceleration of practice from the currently scheduled start date of Sept. 29. The goal is for schools to play something closer to a full slate of regular-season games amid what could be an uncertain collegiate school year both academically and athletically, as campuses search for ways to deal with COVID-19 fallout.

“At this point it’s just a concept,” Gavitt said. “But we have presented it to the conference commissioners and the oversight committees. The ball is in their court. It has some utility, adds some flexibility and options with the (academic) calendar changing, which could affect the break period.”

With dozens of schools shutting down campus between Thanksgiving and the start of second-semester courses in January, Gavitt said it is “almost a certainty” that some basketball games scheduled for that window will be canceled. The optics of leaving winter sports teams on campus for six weeks or more while their fellow students are home is an issue, and there are concerns about traveling for several non-conference games during that time. That could result in schools sending their basketball teams home during the break as well, possibly eliminating anywhere from eight to 12 games and truncating the season.


In that scenario, Gavitt’s solution would call for front-loading the schedule with up to four games played per team in that window between Oct. 27 and Nov. 10. (Most schools will avoid competition on Nov. 3, which is election day, in order to give their athletes the opportunity to vote.) Some of the high-profile games subject to being canceled during the winter break might be moved to that late-October, early-November window, or local opponents could be scheduled during that time to limit travel. Playing conference games in that time also could be an option.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[Rhody74]

I hate to agree with a Gavitt but the idea seems worth considering. But changing schedules nationally would be a nightmare.

[rjsuperfly66]

I don't know if I've shared my scheduling thought here, so if I have, I apologize in advance for this long-winded post.

While opening up an additional 2 weeks of scheduling could be potentially helpful, I do not think that in itself does much to solve the problem.

The problem is this -- URI plays a basketball game tonight against PC. Tomorrow after the game, Jermaine Harris wakes up feeling like garbage. He goes to the doc for a COVID test and tests positive. Now, anyone who has been exposed to him should be quarantining per CDC guidelines. In an expanded test environment, maybe all quarantined players could take a test 5-7 days later, a time period after incubation occurred, to determine if there were any additional positive cases. All players with positive test have to sit out minimum 14 days and pass minimum 2 COVID tests.

I don't think that is a completely reasonable expectation for how quarantining and testing would occur. Here is the problem: Both PC and URI had at least one game scheduled in the next 7 days. With most (if not all) players in quarantine, does that game become a forfeit? Does it become a reschedule? To me, it should become a reschedule.

But what do 2 extra weeks really solve? This could happen 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 times to a team throughout the year. You probably need a minimum extra 2 months to create enough gaps in the schedule to reschedule games.

Lastly, and here is the real problem, take all of that regular season talk aside. I absolutely believe you need a bubble for conference tournaments/NCAA Tournaments. It's a very important reason -- What if you play all year, and you are right on the bubble, and you need to play in your conference tournament, but now the Tuesday before your first conference tournament game, you have a positive COVID case. You then can't reschedule the game, it theoretically has to become a forfeit so the rest of the tournament can move on. Sucks for you, you miss the tournament.

What about this nightmare scenario: URI plays St. Bonaventure in the quarterfinals and wins. The next night, St. Bonnies player X is feeling really ill just as URI is beating Dayton to advance to the A10 finals. Does URI have the quarantine now? They should, they were exposed to Player X. Now, URI can't play in the finals, and the final defaults to a forfeit. What a bust.

If you do a bubble, you have all players tested before leaving home, after all results are in they travel to a hotel, they don't leave that hotel for 10-14 days, getting tested multiple times for COVID. Hopefully all continue to pass, any sick players can be quarantined but should be caught early enough where team does not have to forfeit, and the tournament can be played with all teams.

All teams should remain in the conference tournament bubble, until NCAA locations are set-up, and NCAA should aid in safe travel to the NCAA Tournament bubble, where they should be able to feel confident in the status of all players if their protocols were set-up correctly.

Teams that do not want to quarantine for the conference tournament should elect to have the top seed be the auto-bid. Auto-bids should be tested immediately following end of regular season, and should be sent to NCAA-sanctioned bubbles until tournament bracket is established where they can be isolated, tested, etc.

This is the only thing I can see possibly working -- I believe this talk of 2 extra weeks is small potatoes in the scope of trying to get the season played.

[rhodylaw]

I do not see the concern that they do about having the basketball team stay on campus while the rest of the school is out. Doesn't that mostly solve the problem of basketball by insulating the programs during what is likely to the most questionable time of the season? So they want to move the games to a time when there are more kids on campus and more likely to be campus spread of the virus?

The "travel" concern during the six week break is also bogus. What is the difference in traveling in November and December? The only logistic concern I see is games Thanksgiving week and Christmas week for travel. If that is what they are talking about fine. If they are moving games from December 10th to October 31st what is the difference at that point, other than if it is an on-campus game more kids will be on campus on 10-31 to potentially infect the team traveling in.

[ramster]

The two weeks is because most schools will have no students in campus from Thanksgiving on until Spring semester starts.

Common sense to move December games up

But Dam Gavitt with common sense??? Someone told him to do this, I’m sure it wasn’t his idea.

[ramster]

Among all this doom and gloom in Pro and College sports, Little League baseball has started in Rhode Island. I watched a couple of games last night and observed 90-95% of parents/fans without masks. No social distancing as the Parents sat packed in the stands.

Rhode Island is low on Covid cases, continuing to improve.

[Rhodymob05]

Yea there was an AAU baseball game in my town last night. No masks, aside from a few maybe. None on the playground either with parents, been like that for a month at leaset, yet the virus has fallen like a brick around here.

[Rhode_Island_Red]

Among all this doom and gloom in Pro and College sports, Little League baseball has started in Rhode Island. I watched a couple of games last night and observed 90-95% of parents/fans without masks. No social distancing as the Parents sat packed in the stands.

Rhode Island is low on Covid cases, continuing to improve.

For now ...

[rhodyruckus]

Yeah as a caution to the above, I'd say the prevailing lag time from spreader events to show up in the testing is 2-3 weeks, then any spike in deaths to be 2-3 weeks after that. Not that a little league game here and there will significantly change the numbers, but if every activity goes back to normal with no precautions taken that could make the curve rebound a bit.

[PeteRI]

I don't like to read accounts of Rhode Islanders acting like our Monster in Chief. Wear your damn mask!!

[Rhody72]

How can we make the most money in the current crisis? I believe the NCAA should leave things up to individual conferences, and conferences should leave it up to individual members with flexible scheduling including in-season schedule changes. Invite all members to play for a conference championship. The NCAA tournament will include conference champions and others with the best resume as it is now.

[Rhode_Island_Red]

How can we make the most money in the current crisis? I believe the NCAA should leave things up to individual conferences, and conferences should leave it up to individual members with flexible scheduling including in-season schedule changes. Invite all members to play for a conference championship. The NCAA tournament will include conference champions and others with the best resume as it is now.

In that scenario, what's the likelihood of the Cartel cancelling games against the riffraff? There goes any chance for the riffraff to get an at-large berth.

Of course, to the Cartel, that's a feature, not a bug.

[Rhody72]

...
In that scenario, what's the likelihood of the Cartel cancelling games against the riffraff? There goes any chance for the riffraff to get an at-large berth.

Of course, to the Cartel, that's a feature, not a bug.

Red, why did the cartel team schedule a game against the "riffraff" team in the first place? They didn't have to schedule such a game. If they owe a team a return game, they would still owe them a game in the future.

My point is that each institution will have their own concerns in playing games based on their circumstances. I'm just suggesting a flexible arrangement for playing basketball this season.

[rjsuperfly66]

If a tournament is played next year, I would have to believe at the very least the NET would not be operable and other measures would have to be more utilized, whether eye test or true free-standing strength metrics.

[Rhode_Island_Red]

...
In that scenario, what's the likelihood of the Cartel cancelling games against the riffraff? There goes any chance for the riffraff to get an at-large berth.

Of course, to the Cartel, that's a feature, not a bug.

Red, why did the cartel team schedule a game against the "riffraff" team in the first place? They didn't have to schedule such a game. If they owe a team a return game, they would still owe them a game in the future.

My point is that each institution will have their own concernsth riffraff in playing games based on their circumstances. I'm just suggesting a flexible arrangement for playing basketball this season.

They scheduled games with the riffraff only because they have to fill out a schedule. The Big 10 has decided that’s no longer a consideration for football, so watch all the other dominos fall.

[Rhody72]

...
They scheduled games with the riffraff only because they have to fill out a schedule. The Big 10 has decided that’s no longer a consideration for football, so watch all the other dominos fall.

When a conference cancels all games against non-conference opponents it is wrong to say all these opponents are "riffraff", Take Michigan dropping games against Ball State, Arkansas and U of Washington. Hard to call U of Washington "riffraff". I don't think this example supports your point. I don't doubt you can find a better example - there is a lot of sleeze out there.

[Billyboy78]

...
They scheduled games with the riffraff only because they have to fill out a schedule. The Big 10 has decided that’s no longer a consideration for football, so watch all the other dominos fall.

When a conference cancels all games against non-conference opponents it is wrong to say all these opponents are "riffraff", Take Michigan dropping games against Ball State, Arkansas and U of Washington. Hard to call U of Washington "riffraff". I don't think this example supports your point. I don't doubt you can find a better example - there is a lot of sleeze out there.

I believe USC is losing Alabama and Notre Dame. First time they won't play Notre Dame in decades.

[Rhodymob05]

What’s the point of playing conference only? You still travel, doesn’t matter how far.

[jakepnickers]

Whatever sport is being played we are gonna have to see some resemblance of a bubble situation so the travel isn't the issue. The idea of playing only conference games is to limit the collective conference's germ pool. If they only play in conference, the teams are only exposed to each other. If they play out of conference they are adding all the out of conference teams to the germ pool. The idea is to limit the number of teams you are exposed to not eliminate all exposure.

[Rhody72]

I'll add that conferences have greater control over the conditions in which conference games are played.

[RI_Rams]

In-conference only is I think the only option that makes sense. I could also see in-state non-conference games work too.