Can College Basketball Return?

Some Thoughts About How It Might Work

(St. Louis, MO) – The game we love is at risk of missing a full season. We’re pretty sure the season will be anything but normal, but will we be able to enjoy Missouri Valley and Ohio Valley Conference games this year?

As we watch the fall college sports season, literally twitching in the wind, we wonder can college basketball return? If so, how will it happen and what do the NCAA and individual conferences have to do to compete?

We’ve listened to others, observed the pluses of ‘bubbles’ and watched up close as the St. Louis Cardinals and Major League Baseball continue to struggle with the coronavirus. We humbly submit these ideas to NCAA President Mark Emmert, MVC Commissioner Doug Elgin and OVC Commissioner Beth DeBauche.

Thanksgiving Bubble

Since we can’t imagine fans being allowed to attend games …

Numerous universities are sending students home at Thanksgiving and not allowing them to return to campus until the New Year. All ten Missouri Valley Conference teams should head to Springfield, Missouri and ‘bubble up’. OVC teams ought to head to Nashville. With numerous other colleges nearby, both locations would give teams somewhere to work out.

Teams could quarantine on campus, only practice at selected facilities and would have plenty of time to continue on-line classwork. Academics could be enhanced, they could get tested repeatedly and work out as a team.

Both leagues could play nine games (half their conference schedule) during the Thanksgiving break.

In-State Tournaments

Since most states will have largely uniform health standards, teams should schedule three to four ‘in-state’ games. Dear Mr. Emmert, you should mandate that every D 1 school has to participate! Every state where ‘our’ teams play have plenty of Division 1 rivals.

Using last season’s NET rankings, the NCAA could rank ‘in-state’ schools. Depending on the state, you could group and then bubble the teams, or bring every team to one town for less than a week and have them play a ‘state championship’.

To avoid too many conference matchups, some minor tweaking would have to go into the seeding. According to last year’s final NET rankings, The top four seeds in Illinois would be Illinois, Loyola, Bradley and Southern Illinois-Carbondale.

There are some problems. There are only five D 1 schools in Missouri and four in Iowa, but most of the states associated with the OVC and MVC will have more than enough teams to choose from.

These games would be played over the Christmas break, while the players are still not going home.

Similar League Bracket Buster

Using the NET, RPI  or KenPom.com you could pair leagues of similar abilities and then match teams according to their similar strengths. The Valley’s old ‘Mountain West Challenge is the model here. These two ‘bracket-buster’ type games would help the Selection Committee compare teams come tournament time.

Since the likelihood of a covid-19 vaccine would be improving by the turn of the year, these games could be played on campus and during the first week of 2021.

We should create eight ‘pods’ of conferences (four leagues each). League commissioners could then create workable schedules based on the number of teams and comparative strengths. Using Ken Pomeroy’s rankings from last year, the OVC (#29 in kenpom.com) would be grouped with the other bottom three leagues (Big South, Southwestern Athletic and Mid-Eastern Athletic). The Valley (#11) would be placed with the Atlantic Ten, Mountain West and Mid American Conferences (Nine through 12).

Finishing the Conference Season

After two weeks off, the teams could engage in on campus games with 25 to 50 percent capacity crowds.

Post Season Tournament

While we believe there will be relaxed rules by the first weekend of March, the players and teams could be bubbled during the tournaments, but fans could come to these great celebrations of college basketball and these annual family reunions!

These ideas would allow for roughly a 22 game schedule. They would be able complete their conference schedules, play similarly ranked in-state rivals and leagues that would allow teams to measure up against similar peers.

NCAA Tournament – In Four Bubbles?

So what about March Madness? For safety reasons, we suggest a one year moratoriam on the sub-regionals. The NCAA should place all the teams in one region in the Regional Final city. In other words, Denver, Minneapolis, Brooklyn and Memphis would host every round of the tournament prior the the Final Four. There would be less travel and fewer variables to consider.

The NCAA could make those plans now, rather than attempting to make those kinds of plans in twelve different cities, they could stream-line that job.

Indianapolis hosts the Final Four.

Those are our rough draft ideas. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Blast away or make a tweak, but we’d love to know what you think.

Do Good