2020-21 College Basketball thread

And the women have been sidelined since before New Year's.

Conversely, OSU was the only Pac-12 team to play an entire, unaltered football schedule.

 

So ... a great job during the pandemic?

 

The whole venture is implausible. Football could get away with it because it has so many players and because it has political ties that basketball lacks.
Think of March Madness. Most conference tournaments will end less than 7 days before the NCAA tournament begins. Do we really think all 68 teams will be free and clear of the virus?

 

The sad part - from a sports POV ... the pandemic is awful and the NCAA's willingness to risk kids getting nothing but a scholarship and maybe an extra pair of sneakers so that Mark Emmert and his merry followers can collect is unforgivable - is that the ACC was built on basketball and much of its fan base relates to basketball, not football.

Also, D-I college basketball isn't fractionally as political as college football. There's no requirement to be ranked in the preseason polls or be a prestigious member of a Power Five conference to win it all.

Cannot wait to see how the NCAA tries to rationalize massive delays or redraw brackets on the fly to keep the tournaments - men and women - going.

This will rankle a lot of people on this board ... but Mike Krzyzewski was correct in questioning this madness. I'm still convinced enough of the high-profile coaches - think Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim, Tom Izzo and Bill Self top the list - banding together to say that no salary or trophy is worth lives and long-term clinical damage for those who survive but end up scarred by COVID is worth this.

 

I'd like to think Mark Few and the administrators at Gonzaga would join that list, Sam. Maybe we'll find out.

 

I wanted to put him in - perhaps I should have - but not sure how he feels about it. Know a lot less about his background than the others. But FWIW, he and Gonzaga have repeatedly earned their stripes.

 

Add N.C. State women to the list. Positive test within program ... postponed at least the next two games. Ranked third in the country.

 

Good on Marquette. I'm certain a former noted poster on this board is smiling:

 

I'm hearing talk here about the SEC discussing allowing their top teams to withdraw from the conference tournament and bubble up. The idea seems to be to keep the leading teams healthy going into March Madness - and maybe squeeze in a conference tournament winner on autobid who otherwise would not make it in order to get some extra tournament credits.

 

That seems more like the kind of bullshit that would go on in college football, but hey, I've heard crazier things.

 

It just means more... money.

 

It's a bit of a fine line. I almost think there's no wrong answer here. Play on? I can see the arguments. Shut it down altogether? I can definitely see the arguments. A lot of players want to go on with the season, and I get that. Everything is so frustrating.