The main story to emerge from the Pac-12 on Tuesday was the decision to shut down fall football in 2020, but the other really big part of the Pac-12’s actions was that it shut down all sports for the rest of 2020.
This carries one very obvious and potent piece of news: No Pac-12 college basketball before 2021. Is that upsetting? I completely understand if you are angry at that, because there’s a lot to be angry about.
However: If we stop and think for a moment about how to conduct a college basketball season, this does not reduce the odds of a college basketball season happening.
Other things might reduce those odds, but not this.
First of all, it would make little sense to have athletes on campus between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That time should certainly be spent with family, and we shouldn’t give families the added stress of wondering if their college-age members are safe. Keep them home during the holidays.
Realize this point: Basketball isn’t nearly as punishing on the human body as football is. Basketball can be played in large quantities throughout the calendar year. Football activity generally needs to be limited to one four-month period per year. It is not a year-round sport. So, if college basketball starts practice in early January and starts its regular season in late January, that isn’t any sort of crisis. If the NCAA Tournament and/or Final Four are played a month or even two months later than usual, that’s not a huge problem — an inconvenience, but not a huge problem. An early-May or late-May end to the season would still be in time for the 2021 NBA Draft, and that assumes the 2021 NBA Draft would still be held in late June. It might be pushed back, given that the 2021 NBA season has already been pushed back to some extent and might be pushed back even more in the coming months.
College basketball — due in part to the Pac-12’s decision on Tuesday — has now gained multiple extra months to plan for how to stage a season. The other point worth noting here, especially if college hoops wants to start in late January or early February, is that the possible arrival of a new presidential administration with a very different approach to COVID-19 could create new possibilities that don’t exist under the current president.
College basketball, you now have more time to get this thing right. If the sport doesn’t pull off a season, it will rate as an even bigger failure than the failure to have a fall football season.