It's a lot harder to do than it is in the NBA. But I believe it's doable. It's hard to isolate college students from everyone but their teammates for a season that now starts with practice in early November and runs into April for some teams. But what if the season were much shorter?

Here's one suggestion. Start practice in the last two weeks of January. Put all players in separate rooms in a separate dorm, so they have been effectively quarantined for 14 days before the start of the season. They will only take online classes during this time. To further shorten the time frame, play three games a week instead of two, and play only in conference. Over seven weeks, that gives everyone 21 conference games (the ones TV fans want to see the most, with few exceptions). That season would end on Sunday, March 21st.

This year only, do not play any conference tournaments. Instead, start a 32 team, conference regular season champions only tournament. The first two rounds are played on the home court of the top 8 seeds (with no fans in attendance, that minimizes home court advantage). These games are played from Thursday 3/25 to Sunday 3/28).

The Elite 8 is played at a single site, with 4 games on Saturday, 4/3, then two games on Sunday and the championship game on Monday.

In this scenario, players, coaches and team managers are quarantined for 11 weeks. Anyone who has been through military basic training can tell you that even young men can survive isolation for that long. This schedule would not interfere with draft plans or professional playoffs or the Masters golf tournament.

It's not ideal, and the "national champion" will always have an asterisk beside their place in the record books. But it's as safe as it could be during a pandemic, and it beats not playing at all.

Who wants it?

This isn't the pros.

Not having conference tournaments makes sense. As does reducing the size of the Championship Tournament to 32 teams.

What makes no sense is limiting participants to conference “champions” only. That would be a disaster that forgets what occurred in 1974...when one of the best 2 or 3 teams in the country for the season (Maryland) doesn’t get to compete because they play in a conference with a second powerhouse.

Possibly this is the year that power conferences bring a little sanity to the year end tournament.

Big East is discussing doing one in Omaha.

(08-15-2020 05:03 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Not having conference tournaments makes sense. As does reducing the size of the Championship Tournament to 32 teams.

What makes no sense is limiting participants to conference “champions” only. That would be a disaster that forgets what occurred in 1974...when one of the best 2 or 3 teams in the country for the season (Maryland) doesn’t get to compete because they play in a conference with a second powerhouse.

Possibly this is the year that power conferences bring a little sanity to the year end tournament.

With 32 conferences, it needs to be more than 32 teams. I've long thought 64 was excessive. Best would be about 48 by dropping 10 wildcards and 10 of the lesser conferences. But they aren't going to drop conferences.

Nope. If you can’t have fall sports, you can’t have winter sports with the same rationale.

(08-15-2020 09:36 AM)ken d Wrote:  It's a lot harder to do than it is in the NBA. But I believe it's doable.

I don't. Way too many schools.

Maybe each conference could have its own bubble? But then that means no OOC games.

(08-15-2020 05:03 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  Not having conference tournaments makes sense. As does reducing the size of the Championship Tournament to 32 teams.

What makes no sense is limiting participants to conference “champions” only. That would be a disaster that forgets what occurred in 1974...when one of the best 2 or 3 teams in the country for the season (Maryland) doesn’t get to compete because they play in a conference with a second powerhouse.

Possibly this is the year that power conferences bring a little sanity to the year end tournament.

Until we agree to have a tournament with no autobids, this is the best we can do, since there would be no way of reasonably determining which the best at large teams are since nobody plays OOC. The whole point is to reduce the length of the season and travel to the tournament.

This version effectively means you have a 16 team tournament once the bottom 16 champs are eliminated, most likely in the opening round.

Frankly, if it were up to me, there would be no tournament at all. But the American psyche can't tolerate the idea of not winding up with only one team still standing at the end. It would be like Sheldon Cooper only being allowed to knock on the door once. We can live with the champ having an asterisk in the record book better than having no champ at all.

If you can’t play football outside what makes anyone believe we can play basketball inside.

Going to be interesting watching the same people here pushing for football to be shutdown lobbying for basketball to be played.

These kids aren't pros. They are allegedly "student-athletes".

It kind of puts a dent in that position if you isolate the athletes from the rest of the student body....for money.

(08-15-2020 09:36 AM)ken d Wrote:  It's a lot harder to do than it is in the NBA. But I believe it's doable. It's hard to isolate college students from everyone but their teammates for a season that now starts with practice in early November and runs into April for some teams. But what if the season were much shorter?

Here's one suggestion. Start practice in the last two weeks of January. Put all players in separate rooms in a separate dorm, so they have been effectively quarantined for 14 days before the start of the season. They will only take online classes during this time. To further shorten the time frame, play three games a week instead of two, and play only in conference. Over seven weeks, that gives everyone 21 conference games (the ones TV fans want to see the most, with few exceptions). That season would end on Sunday, March 21st.

This year only, do not play any conference tournaments. Instead, start a 32 team, conference regular season champions only tournament. The first two rounds are played on the home court of the top 8 seeds (with no fans in attendance, that minimizes home court advantage). These games are played from Thursday 3/25 to Sunday 3/28).

The Elite 8 is played at a single site, with 4 games on Saturday, 4/3, then two games on Sunday and the championship game on Monday.

In this scenario, players, coaches and team managers are quarantined for 11 weeks. Anyone who has been through military basic training can tell you that even young men can survive isolation for that long. This schedule would not interfere with draft plans or professional playoffs or the Masters golf tournament.

It's not ideal, and the "national champion" will always have an asterisk beside their place in the record books. But it's as safe as it could be during a pandemic, and it beats not playing at all.

I think so. With the new saliva test that can you cheap and quick results, you can be more aggressive with the scheduling. You could really mitigate risk by doing the following:

Classes stop after thanksgiving, games start immediately after thanksgiving (thanks saliva test).

Conference games start late December/early January.

Classes resume January 31 (gives time for anyone picking up Covid over the holidays to let it run its course).

Players in a bubble Feb. and March.

That is 8 weeks and doable. It would be hell for a college kid, but it can be done.