It’s been just over eight months since the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancelation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament, and we’re about to head into another college basketball season with that same pandemic still raging.
Current Iona basketball coach and Hall of Famer Rick Pitino, though, would like to see the NCAA hit pause on its plans to move forward with the season.
Just in the past 48 hours, we’ve seen Baylor cancel its opener against Arizona State due to Scott Drew’s positive COVID-19 test. Tennessee has paused team activities after multiple positive tests in the program, including head coach Rick Barnes. Arizona and Duke have also canceled openers. More will certainly follow.
That had Pitino come in with this idea … May Madness!
I’ll say it again, to anyone who will listen, push the season back to March, and then have May Madness. Give the Vaccine a chance. In the best interest of all involved!
— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) November 23, 2020
Pitino wanted to see the basketball season pushed back until March and then have a postseason tournament in May. In theory, it would make plenty of sense to give the vaccine a chance (which is already nearing initial distribution). But the reality of that proposal doesn’t seem feasible at this point at all. That ship has probably sailed.
The NCAA has had eight months to prepare for this point, and if it was going to have a season pushed back into the spring then that plan should have been implemented months ago — not two days before the season’s scheduled start.
You’re talking about an idea that would require navigating NBA deadlines, signing/recruiting dates, scheduling venues and booking new travel. You’d see the same resistance from players and cash-strapped athletic departments that drove the Big Ten and Pac-12 into walking back on delayed seasons.
Plus, to make a May Madness work under a semi-normal timeline for a season, this delayed season would have to start in January (or maybe early February) — not March. The vaccine situation for non-medical personnel likely won’t be much different in January than it is now. And a March start would be looking at a “July Madness,” which wouldn’t work with NBA deadlines and players graduating.
As reckless as it sounds (and it’s awfully reckless!), the college basketball season will likely look a whole lot like the college football season.
There will be postponed and canceled games. There will be teams that travel and have to turn back. Some schools will allow fans at its indoor venues, others won’t. The NCAA made it pretty clear that it intends to plow forward, hope for the best and pray that everyone makes it to the single-city NCAA Tournament bubble in Indianapolis.
The NCAA took a huge financial hit with last season’s March Madness cancelation. It will not let the 2021 tourney suffer the same fate — health and safety be damned.
Because, after all, that’s what the NCAA has always been about:
Money.
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