Upcoming Season - Plans Being Considered

[Jet915]

Jon Rothstein
@JonRothstein
·
2h
Source: The Big East and Big 12 are still endeavoring to play the Big East-Big 12 Battle during the upcoming season despite obvious logistical issues related to COVID-19.

[sju88grad]

[youtube][/youtube]

The NY Times has a tracker of over 1,000 colleges and universities and their Covid-19 cases.....the Big East seems to be holding up pretty well compared to some of the larger universities......not surprising based on population but good to see we're not having any huge outbreaks similar to Dayton.....i hope it stays that way.....

As of Sept. 3rd:

UConn - 186 cases
Marquette - 128 cases
Creighton - 119 cases
Georgetown - 98 cases
Butler - 53 cases
Xavier - 15 cases
Seton Hall - 10 cases
St. John's - 9 cases
Providence - 6 cases
DePaul - 1 case
Villanova - 1 case

Those numbers are both wrong and seriously out of date, at least as far as Xavier is concerned. Xavier had 25 student cases in late August, rising to 37 cases by September 4. As of yesterday, the number had fallen back to 17 cases. The first 3-4 weeks are critical, so what happens up to mid-to-late September provides a far more accurate gauge as to what is going on. For Xavier at least, virtually all cases have been students; only 2 employee cases have been reported.

Take it up with The NY Times.....

[redmen9194]

As of yesterday St. John's had 25 cases. Not a bad number so far.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

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Report: ACC proposes every Division I team make NCAA tournament - Cassandra Negley, Yahoo - September 9, 2020

The ACC has a monstrous March in mind. The conference is proposing that every team in Division I be entered in the 2021 NCAA tournament, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports reported. The decision is reportedly to “celebrate” college basketball.

Jon Rothstein @JonRothstein

Source: All ACC programs agreed earlier today to have every single Division 1 team in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. Several are expected to release official statements later today. This is being done to "celebrate" college basketball.

Source: The ACC will propose that ever single team in Division 1 will make the 2021 NCAA Tournament. 3:10 PM · Sep 9, 2020

It was a unanimous vote by ACC coaches, John Goodman of Stadium reported.

Why the ACC proposal for a 346-team NCAA basketball tournament won't work - Pete Thamel, Yahoo - September 9, 2020

To say the NCAA needs to hold a tournament to stay in existence may be a bit hyperbolic. But no one wants to see what happens when it cuts past the bone. Nor do leagues like the Big East, Atlantic-10, or WCC that rely on NCAA units to survive.

If ESPN or Fox owns the rights to a league tournament that wouldn’t be played in favor of this all-inclusive idea, they’d likely get some piece of televising the early rounds in exchange.

But if anyone thinks those companies have gobs more money to throw at what would essentially be repackaged content is naïve. TV networks are tightening the belt like the rest of us. And the only real value in this still comes from the final 64 games. This idea would create a lot more inventory that’s the quality of the First Four rather than Final Four, and no smart network is opening their wallet for First Four content during a pandemic.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

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NCAA Senior Vice President Shoots Down Basketball Tournament Expansion - Kevin Brown, NBC Sports – September 10, 2020

NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt shot down the idea of the possible NCAA Tournament expansion, per Andy Katz.

That didn’t last long.

The fifteen ACC basketball head coaches will be disappointed to hear that their ‘brilliant’ plan to cash in on their Contracts of Employment has been thwarted by Dan Gavitt. A standard clause in any Contract of Employment for a Division I head coach would include incentive clauses for various accomplishments - rewarded by bonuses in addition to the specified base salary. Among these incentives would be a stipulated bonus for the coach's team “being named to the NCAA Tournament field” in any given March. Not all 15 ACC coaches will be getting their NCAA Tournament bonuses in March 2021.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

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NCAA basketball season set to open day before Thanksgiving - The Associated Press - September 16, 2020

The NCAA men's and women's basketball season will begin on November 25th, the day before Thanksgiving. The Division I Council voted Wednesday to push the start date back from the originally scheduled November 10th as one of several precautions against the spread of coronavirus.

The later start date coincides with the decision most schools made to send students home from Thanksgiving until January out of concern about a potential late-fall and early-winter flareup of COVID-19. Closed campuses could serve as a quasi bubble for players and provide a window for nonconference games.

The maximum number of regular-season games has been reduced from 31 to 27. The minimum number of games for consideration for the NCAA Tournament was cut from 25 to 13.

Teams can start preseason practices on October 14th, but will be allowed to work out 12 hours per week beginning Monday.

No scrimmages against other teams or exhibitions are allowed.

[Xudash]

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/college/xavier/2020/09/16/ncaa-approves-start-date-college-basketball-season/5802534002/

November 25th

[ArmyVet]

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/college/xavier/2020/09/16/ncaa-approves-start-date-college-basketball-season/5802534002/

November 25th

Will the Big East go straight into the bubble after the holiday MTEs?

[Xudash]

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/college/xavier/2020/09/16/ncaa-approves-start-date-college-basketball-season/5802534002/

November 25th

Will the Big East go straight into the bubble after the holiday MTEs?

Some more answers:

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/college/xavier/2020/09/17/plan-place-xavier-university-musketeers-mens-ncaa-college-basketball-travis-steele-strange-season/3478971001/

[DudeAnon]

Obviously safety is top priority. But people have made a lot of good arguments about how it's safer being in a controlled environment. Either way, thank God ball is coming!