Before we dive into the meat of this post, a couple of programming notes.
If you’ve only subscribed to the email newsletter, you are missing quite a bit of great content that is tucked behind the paywall for the paying subs.
For example:
On Duncan Robinson, Jordan Nwora and finding the thin value that comes with having one elite skill. (link)
Is Isaac Okoro the next Jimmy Butler, or the next Michael Kidd-Gilchrist? (link)
The Stevens Point Pipeline: How a small Wisconsin town has changed the future of Virginia basketball (link)
Can someone, anyone, justify the fact that Kira Lewis is not a top ten pick? (link)
Deni Avdija’s versatility problem (link)
Come along for the ride.
Especially if you are an Iowa fan 👀👀👀
For full access to The Rebound, subscribe today for $7/month or $70 for the year.
WE NOW HAVE A START DATE
Last Wednesday, the NCAA officially set a targeted start date for the college basketball season: Wednesday, November 25th.
This pushes back the start by a little more than two weeks, from November 10th. There had been some momentum pushing for a Nov. 21st start due to a few multi-team events (MTEs) that were scheduled to begin that Saturday, but in the end, Dan Gavitt and company opted for the 25th. More than three-quarters of campuses will be empty by then, sending their students home for good before Thanksgiving.
The stated priority will be the safety of the people involved in these games, from the players and the coaches to the scoreboard operators and the staff working the broadcasts. The actual priority will be negative tests. The quickest way to mess up a season is to have an outbreak to happen, and holding off on holding games until all of those college students are home for winter break seems like the best way to do just that.
And, frankly, it will be better for the sport as a whole.
There are no other American sports that are going to be played on that day. Football isn’t played on Wednesdays. The NBA playoffs will be over, and the new season will still be weeks away. The MLB and NHL playoffs will be over, too. College basketball will have a day all to itself, and that will, unquestionably, be a good thing for a sport that needs all the buzz it can get.
But while we do have a start date, that is more or less the only thing that we know about the upcoming college basketball schedule.
The best way to describe the college basketball world right now: A clusterfuck.
Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton confirmed as much:
Even in normal years, scheduling in the college basketball world is totally unstructured. The NCAA tells teams the maximum number of games they are allowed to play, the minimum number of Division I games they need to play to be tournament-eligible and then lets them figure it all out on their own.
For non-conference play, once you get past the conference challenges and the MTEs, it’s all about working the phones. For the high-majors, it’s about finding the right mids to bring in for buy games. For the mid-majors, it’s often about trying to get bought. The problem? There are about 80 high-majors who are looking to buy 7-8 games each. There are 270 mids competing for those buy games, some of whom are too good to be invited into a high-major’s gym but aren’t good enough to be considered worth the risk of losing on the road.
Oftentimes, college basketball scheduling really is as simple as calling a friend and asking if they’ll play.
Typically, that happens throughout the spring and the summer.
Not this year.
We’re now in mid-September, and we just found out that a third of the non-conference schedule is up in smoke and that the maximum number of games that can be played has been cut by four, to 27.
It’s a total shit show for the people in charge of figuring out these schedules.
If you don’t want to take me at my word, I’d encourage you to listen to this podcast from Jeff Goodman, which featured the people in charge of scheduling from Michigan State, Xavier, Winthrop and Jackson State discussing where they’re currently at.
Essentially, the problem is two-fold.
For starters, there’s the financial factor. The model for buy-games just doesn’t make any sense in this climate. The reason these exist is that the big schools have season-ticket packages to sell. They make their money off of hosting home games, whether it’s in the form of ticket sales, concessions, parking or their TV deals. To make sure they have product to sell, they’ll pay an upfront fee to the mid-majors they bring in. On paper, it looks like a mid getting a shot at one of the big boys in their house. In reality, it’s a way to generate the revenue that funds both athletic departments.
But there aren’t going to be fans at these games, which means they won’t be moneymakers. And if the big schools aren’t making money, why are they going to be cutting checks to the mids to play? Remember, even the biggest athletic departments are furloughing employees and enforcing “voluntary” paycuts.
The other issue is testing.
The richest athletic departments can afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on testing. They can spend the money to make sure when they fly, they fly private. They can pay to keep their athletes separated from the student population. The small programs absolutely cannot do those things.
Why would any program want to risk an outbreak by playing a school that hasn’t been tested in a week?
The good news is this: It’s September 21st, and the people in charge of college hoops have known for the last six weeks that they have to have A) answers, B) contingency plans and C) failsafe options for when those contingency plans go to hell. Trust me when I tell you that the number of people in college basketball that are putting in 16-hour days and spending their weekends working the phones is very, very high.
And the result is that there are some things happening.
The Maui Invitational is going to be taking place. It will be in Asheville, N.C., which is not Maui but is still a nice town. (I’ve already put in a request that they loosen the rims before the event starts.)
The Battle 4 Atlantis won’t technically be “the Battle 4 Atlantis,” but seven of the eight schools that were supposed to play in that event will be playing in a similar event in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Duke won’t be, but the Blue Devils are expected to create their own MTE, a bubble on their Durham campus that would allow them and three other programs to fill some games. Kentucky will be doing the same with Richmond, Detroit and Hartford. Louisville is looking to host a bubble, which Chris Mack even tweeted about trying to fill slots.
And then there is Orlando.
The home of the NBA bubble is expected to be the place where all of the ESPN-run events are held. You know what I’m talking about: the Champions Classic, the Jimmy V Classic, the Preseason NIT, the Wooden Legacy, the Orlando Invitational, the Charleston Classic, the Myrtle Beach Invitational and the Diamond Head Classic. At Mohegan Sun, the Gazelle Group is looking to create a bubble for the Legends Classic, the Gotham Classic and the Empire Classic, the latter of which would include both Baylor and Villanova, a pair of preseason top three teams.
Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Houston, Washington D.C. and Winthrop are all considering creating bubbles, and I’m sure there are plenty more that I have forgotten to mention.
So yes, there is going to be college basketball played this year.
Rest assured.
We just don’t know where. Or when. Or who will be playing.
So be patient.
I promise people are busting their ass to get us answers.
Hey Rob
Baylor is also scheduled to play Gonzaga in the Jimmy V in the Orlando bubble. Is it possible they could do both?