Dan
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2021 NCAA Tournament will be held in one location
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sacraig
- The desert
I don't know how to feel about the prospects for the season getting called off. On the one hand, we are in a really dark place right now and getting worse. On the other, football is playing right now semi-successfully, and it's a lot easier to put basketball programs in a bubble due to their much smaller size.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/maac/2020/11/14/rick-pitino-iona-may-madness/6295191002/
I know, Rick Pitino, but I thought this was an interesting idea. May Madness, basically push the season back a bit and eventually finish the season in May instead of March. Not ideal but if it means getting this season in and finishing with a tournament, sure beats the alternative.
I know, Rick Pitino, but I thought this was an interesting idea. May Madness, basically push the season back a bit and eventually finish the season in May instead of March. Not ideal but if it means getting this season in and finishing with a tournament, sure beats the alternative.
The smaller size could also work against basketball by having a couple positive cases shut down programs for 2-3 weeks for contact tracing
sacraig
- The desert
True, but notably the NBA had a really successful comeback while MLB and NFL has much more mixed results. Given, bubbling professionals is a bit easier, but I do think that still goes to show that basketball is easier to successfully bubble. How well it translates down to college is an open question (notably, NCAA football has seemingly seen more impact from COVID than the NFL, though I don't know if that is true per capita).
The Dave
- CA
The problem with this approach is that you have no Plan B. If you begin the season with regular March Madness as the plan then you have the fallback plan of a May Madness if needed.
How many gyms will it take to pull this off? There will be what(?) 32 games the first round? Remember the old NIT where they would run games all day long, one after another. Is that the plan or will they run games concurrently in different gyms? How much time do you need between games to sterilize each venue? Should be interesting.
32 games over 2 days (typically). If they played 1 game per gym per day (so they could sufficiently clean locker rooms) that would mean they'd need 16 facilities.
If they either played 2 games per day OR extended the first round to be played over 4 days, that would bring it down to just 8 facilities necessary.
If they bring High School courts into play (since there wont be fans anyway) it's definitely feasible that they could find 8 or 16 courts to play on. And there'd still be plenty of other courts available for teams to practice at.
Here's my educated guess on how they could do the venues for the tournament in Indy (the Final Four was already scheduled to be there anyway):
For the 1st/2nd round, assuming they don't care about the size of venue, they could use Indiana Farmers Coliseum, which underwent a $63 million renovation from 2012-2014, IUPUI Gymnasium, and Nicoson Hall (UIndy's home arena). If they don't want to use those smaller ones, then my guess is they don't go any further out than Mackey Arena, Assembly Hall, and Worthen Arena (Ball State's home arena). If they really wanted to stay in Indy, they could always just set up some courts in the Indiana Convention Center.
The regionals could be pulled off being at just Bankers Life Fieldhouse and Hinkle Fieldhouse. It wouldn't be ideal for how they normally do tournaments but if you're not gonna have fans, it doesn't make a difference in terms of getting people in and out.
The Final Four would be at Lucas Oil Stadium.
For the 1st/2nd round, assuming they don't care about the size of venue, they could use Indiana Farmers Coliseum, which underwent a $63 million renovation from 2012-2014, IUPUI Gymnasium, and Nicoson Hall (UIndy's home arena). If they don't want to use those smaller ones, then my guess is they don't go any further out than Mackey Arena, Assembly Hall, and Worthen Arena (Ball State's home arena). If they really wanted to stay in Indy, they could always just set up some courts in the Indiana Convention Center.
The regionals could be pulled off being at just Bankers Life Fieldhouse and Hinkle Fieldhouse. It wouldn't be ideal for how they normally do tournaments but if you're not gonna have fans, it doesn't make a difference in terms of getting people in and out.
The Final Four would be at Lucas Oil Stadium.
If they push the season start back, basketball will be in the same situation as football, no make up or fall back dates. By starting as planned, we may end up with May Madness, but that would allow the season to play out with time off for quaratines and make up games.
Unfortunately currently plans are not similar to NBA 2020 bubble....not even close.
sacraig
- The desert
True. I noted that you couldn't really do that with college players. But it's still a lot easier to keep a small team with a small staff safe as compared to a team with enough players and staff to fill an entire high school graduating class.
Deleted member 4333
D
Guest
Why Lucas Oil Stadium? With no fans, I would think a much smaller venue would be more appropriate.
If there's not gonna be any fans, is it really gonna make a difference?
JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
- Chicago
Why does that sound so familiar?
Oh yeah...
Oh yeah...
Lucas Oil with several courts?
Convention Center set up like Atlantis, Vegas or Cancun tourneys?
Many exisiting arenas and gyms around Indy?
Or expand to Bloomington, West Lafayette, Terre Haute, etc.?
Will the Pacers have a home schedule that will impact any of this?
So many questions! Makes for great discussions.
Convention Center set up like Atlantis, Vegas or Cancun tourneys?
Many exisiting arenas and gyms around Indy?
Or expand to Bloomington, West Lafayette, Terre Haute, etc.?
Will the Pacers have a home schedule that will impact any of this?
So many questions! Makes for great discussions.
With the schedule format the NBA is using this upcoming season, they could work around it.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
I don't get the LucasOil part of it unless they do multiple courts at once, and that doesn't seem conducive to good TV coverage. I'd love to see games at Butler though. Such a great building and it looks good on TV.
There are several venues that they are looking into....some high school gyms in that area are really nice...with very few people in attendance seat capacity isn't an issue....yea Butler would be great....can't wait for Georigie, Damonte, and Trent to break out the tape measure.....showing the team that the hoop is 10' in height and FT line is 15' from the hoop
illini80
- Forgottonia
Gotta give you a shout out for possibly the best misspelling of Giorgi’s name to date.
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