Strange but true: College basketball can act sooner than football

Part of a new and weird college sports world.

Nearly every COVID-19 college sports column has to include a version of this disclaimer: We can’t expect normal solutions to an anything-but-normal situation. We can’t apply normal responses to an unprecedented moment which is volatile, fluid, disruptive, economically destructive, lethal, and very scary.

In normal circumstances, drastic measures aren’t needed. In the world of COVID-19, drastic measures are required.

While we wait to see if college football will be played this fall — or maybe in the spring of 2021 — let’s shift our attention to college basketball.

This next statement might seem counterintuitive, but think about it for a bit: College basketball’s decisions on when — or if — it should play a 2021 season aren’t nearly as difficult as college football’s decisions.

This doesn’t mean college basketball has easy decisions to make — not at all — but it can act sooner than football can, which offers at least the possibility of getting ahead of pandemic-related problems in a possible bid to save the 2021 season and (crucially) play a 2021 NCAA Tournament, which the sport needs to do if possible after being deprived of a 2020 tourney by the pandemic.

Why can college basketball act more quickly than football? A few basic points emerge:

First, reports have circulated over the past week that a COVID-19 mutation is making its way through the United States, a partial (if not central) reason why positive case totals have exploded in a number of states:

Consider this story as well:

We are sitting here in the middle of summer, with plenty to worry about in the present moment, but the late fall and the coming winter demand extra care and caution from the American public — and therefore extra interventions (in the form of generous spending and provisions) by government.

Does it matter if a winter death during flu season is officially a COVID-19 death or a flu death or a pneumonia death? The bottom line is we need to reduce as many deaths as possible.

The timing of a possible vaccine could significantly change a lot of what various states, localities, businesses, and institutions choose to do, but we don’t yet have a vaccine or a specific timetable. Most estimates put the arrival of a vaccine in the early months of 2021 — maybe late December at the earliest. The wild card connected to these estimates, though, is that the vaccine actually has to work. If it doesn’t, it’s a huge blow to the world, not just the United States. The college sports industry would be just one small part of the resulting devastation.

Let’s say, though, that a vaccine which works is created and then distributed. The creation of the vaccine wouldn’t mean sports could instantly start. It would take multiple months to distribute the vaccine and have it readily available — for a reasonable price — across the country.

Being reasonable — and conservative — in an estimate of when a successful vaccine would be readily, widely, and cheaply available, April of 2021 might be optimistic at this point. May might be more the actual target. March might be too much to ask for.

So, if we operate under this relatively conservative estimate (with March being an optimistic target which would greatly exceed expectations), where does that leave college basketball?

If we accept that winter is going to be nasty for COVID and flu and pneumonia, having basketball — an indoor sport — played in the winter seems inadvisable. Having young basketball players fly to game sites in winter also seems inadvisable.

With college football, there is a tension between playing in the fall and the spring. No one is thinking college football can or should play in the winter. College football could get a few games in before flu season (Thanksgiving through March) and then consider spring games.

College basketball, though, could announce right now that it won’t play any games from Thanksgiving through March. It can announce right now that NCAA Tournament dates will be revised. This might mean taking the NCAA Tournament away from some or all of the current sites, which is a blow to those local economies… but if this means having an NCAA Tournament in June or even early July, why not?

Let’s realize this as another reason why college basketball can get ahead of COVID-19 (or at least make an attempt to do so): The NBA has tentatively planned its draft for October of 2020, and for its 2021 season to begin on December 1 of 2020. It is true that the NBA wants to condense its schedule so that players can play in the Tokyo Summer Olympics (postponed from 2020 and scheduled for the summer of 2021), but with COVID-19 complications bound to emerge, it is hard to see the NBA’s plan going exactly as scheduled.

College basketball could have a late-spring, early summer season if a vaccine allows. The idea that the NBA Draft would have to occur in its normal late-June slot does not seem particularly wise enough or strong enough to withstand the other schedule adjustments likely to occur.

College basketball can be played in the spring a lot more easily than football can. One can play basketball a lot more regularly than football. That, and the reality that hoops shouldn’t be played this winter, make it easier for basketball to adjust its calendar, whereas football has to wait as long as possible before postponing a fall schedule.

Basketball, weirdly enough, has more freedom and flexibility.

It ought to use that freedom sooner rather than later.