Big East coaches favor keeping 20-game league schedule

Big East women’s basketball coaches held a virtual meeting Friday morning and voted to keep their conference schedule at 20 games for the 2020-21 season, a source told Hearst Connecticut Media.

The vote was relatively unanimous.

Under the expanded 20-game schedule — which coincides with the return of UConn — the league’s 11 schools are slated to play home-and-homes against each other.

While coaches would prefer to keep that structure intact, the league will need to determine if games can safely be played at campus sites, and when.

The NCAA announced Wednesday the season will tip off Nov. 25 instead of Nov. 10 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That would leave a two-month window where classes would be out of session and social distancing concerns would, theoretically, be reduced.

One proposal on the table is to begin Big East play the first weekend of December. But whether those games are held at a bubble-type setting or campus arenas is still being hashed out.

The NBA, WNBA and NHL bubbles have been a major success so far, with each league having played weeks without interruption because of the coronavirus. However, some coaches have pushed back on that concept, a source said.

Mohegan Sun in Uncasville has emerged as a potential bubble site because of its location and amenities, not to mention its past success staging multiple sporting events, including boxing and MMA, over the last few months.

The Hall of Fame Women’s Challenge — a fourteam tournament featuring UConn, Quinnipiac, Mississippi State and Maine — remains on track for Nov. 28-29 at the arena.