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The reports keeping coming and the puzzle pieces keep sliding into place on Michigan State basketball’s 2020-21 schedule.
Yesterday, I published an article on the latest status of the Spartans’ 2020-21 college basketball schedule with a few unknowns still lingering. One of those question marks was the Gavitt Tipoff Games — which traditionally pits the Big Ten and Big East, similar to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge — but a pair of reports from college basketball insiders indicates the Spartans won’t take place in this year’s event.
Andy Katz of NCAA.com reported the Big East is “committed” to playing their agreed-upon series of games with the Big 12, appearing to put the Gavitt Games on the back burner for the league. Katz added that a handful of Big Ten-Big East games could be played if the teams are located close to each other, such as Northwester-DePaul or Nebraska-Creighton.
The @BIGEASTMBB is committed to keeping the challenge with @Big12Conference. But don’t be surprised if Gavitt Games becomes just regional games that can be folded in like Wisconsin-Marquette, Seton Hall-Rutgers, CU-Neb, DePaul-Northwestern. Event was prior to Nov. 25 start date.
— Andy Katz (@TheAndyKatz) October 2, 2020
Earlier in the day, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports tweeted that the Big East has a target window of Dec. 12 – 23 to play potentially four conference games, which basically takes up the entire back half of December from playing non-conference games.
Sources: The Big East's target window to play regular season league games in December is 12/12- 12/23. A select number of conference games could be played prior to that window.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) October 2, 2020
So with Michigan State having no nearby Big East opponents, and their schedule basically booked up through Dec. 9 and the Big Ten schedule most likely starting no later than early January, it seems almost impossible to squeeze in the Gavitt Games this year.
Keep in mind, that this is all speculation at this point since neither Michigan State nor the Gavitt Games have announced anything but it does make sense for the Spartans to skip the event this year. Their non-conference schedule was stripped down from normally 11 games to only seven because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and nearly all of those seven games are already filled up with high-level competition.
Here is the current schedule breakdown based on reports from the past few weeks:
- Nov. 25 – 27: Orlando Invitational (three games; tournament field includes Gonzaga, Auburn, Xavier, Belmont, St. Louis, Boise State and eighth TBD team)
- Dec. 1: Champions Classic vs. Duke
- Dec. 8 or 9: ACC-Big Ten Challenge vs. TBD team
- December – March: 20-game Big Ten conference schedule
This leaves the Spartans with two non-conference games left to add to the schedule. If teams are thinking more locally-based when finding opponents, don’t be surprised if the Spartans add the Oakland Grizzlies and one of the in-state Mid American Conference foes to round out the schedule.
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