Hoops coaches scramble to fill schedules
Games set to begin Nov. 25
College coaches endured a tense time waiting for the NCAA to green light the 2020-21 basketball season.
They knew there was a window the NCAA was looking at to start, likely sometime in late November or early December. They just didn’t have a date. So they did the best they could to prepare for the big moment, yet still found themselves in a scramble once it actually happened.
Even now, six weeks before tipoff, teams are struggling to fill out schedules as the clock keeps ticking.
“We were trading a lot of phone calls, trying to come up with the best solutions,” said Anthony Ruta, director of basketball operations under Arkansas coach Eric Musselman. “You need time because you’re trying to juggle a bunch of different things. You’re trying to check a lot of boxes along the way without compromising yourself in other areas.”
College football ended up with a scattershot plan for starting its season, leaving it up to the various conferences. As a result, some conferences are already playing while others, like the Pac-12 and Big Ten, are still waiting for their seasons to kick off.
The NCAA took a more unified approach to the basketball season, saying it would set a start date for all teams in all conferences.
Word came down in mid-September, when the NCAA said the season will begin on Nov. 25.
Then the scramble began.
Coaches kept in touch with opponents on their original schedules to make sure they were both on the same page. A multitude of factors had to be sifted through.
Because the season was originally slated to begin in early November, the later start date meant several games on the schedule would have to be pushed to another day or eliminated. Many teams don’t want to travel long distances during a pandemic, so finding regional opponents became a priority.
Teams also had to sort through contracts with previously scheduled opponents and work around uncertainties as leagues across the country try to work out conference schedules.
“The problem is we already had the schedule,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. “(Director of