Arizona’s return to hoops brings hard questions
By voting to allow their men’s and women’s basketball teams to join the rest of Division I by opening on Nov. 25, Pac-12 school CEOs also unleashed an avalanche of questions.
Unlike Pac-12 football teams, which were already likely to play some sort of conference-only season, Pac-12 basketball teams must now figure out how to reconstruct their early-season schedules with single nonconference games, multiple-team events (MTEs) out of the region and/or by joining other Westernarea conference teams in groups of nonconference pods in Las Vegas.
When asked during a Zoom media conference Thursday what guidance they might have for their basketball teams in scheduling, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and ASU athletic director Ray Anderson both grinned.
“I think the answer to your question is yes,” Scott said. “All of the above is being considered.”
In fact, Scott said, he was actually leaving the Zoom media conference to meet virtually with Pac-12 basketball coaches later Thursday. They would discuss exactly that — the potential for nonconference games and MTEs. Scott said the Pac-12 is also waiting to hear from the NCAA Medical Advisory Committee on what the minimum testing standards will be for other conferences.
The Pac-12 has secured supplies for a daily COVID-19 testing regimen that Oregon president Michael Schill said “made us much more comfortable” in reversing the school CEOs’ decision last month to postpone all sports competition until January. But it remains unclear when — or if — all Division I teams will have similar testing available.
“We are committed to ensure that any nonconference competition would be against teams that uphold the same testing standard that we have and that there are no compromises there,” Scott said. “So there’s still a few pieces that need to get worked out.
“We will do so soon. I think we’re kind of all in the same boat… so the decision today was timely in terms of trying to figure out the answer to how many nonconference games there will be versus conference, and what the role is, if any, of MTEs in our schedule.”
Although Pac-12 teams were planning to play 20 conference games this season for the first time, Scott said teams are now likely to play between 18 and 20 depending on how their nonconference schedules sort out. Scott said it is possible that conference games still might be played in December and that
the conference’s long-term desire play 20 games per season remains.
In order to meet the NCAA’s new maximum of 27 games, Arizona could simply lop off the four games scheduled to be played before Nov. 25 — home games with NAU, Northern Colorado, Loyola Marymount and Wyoming. It is unlikely UA would keep the remainder of its pre-New Year’s schedule intact.
The Wildcats are scheduled to play in the NIT Season Tip-Off from Nov. 25-27, but those games are now expected to be moved to Orlando, Florida. It’s unclear if Arizona would want to travel that far to open with two games — and two season-opening games that will be against either Texas Tech, Cincinnati and/or St. John’s.
Arizona is also scheduled for nonconference road games against Gonzaga (Dec. 5) and Illinois (Dec. 12). But Gonzaga coach Mark Few has already said he expects the Dec. 5 game to be postponed until 2021-22. Ryan Reynolds, UA’s director of basketball operations, said Thursday it is likely the game will be moved back a year.
Likewise, UA’s game at Illinois, the return of a two-year series that had the Illini visit McKale Center early last season, also might be postponed.
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Arizona is, however, likely to keep some of its post-Nov. 25 home nonconference games, since those are already under contracts that might not be easily broken, assuming the games can be played under agreeable testing protocols.
Another possibility is scrapping those games or moving some of them inside a Las Vegas pod of sorts.
But, again, Reynolds said all that remains up in the air.
“It’s gonna have to be sorted out quickly, and everything is on the table as far as moving games back, maybe getting new games, etc.,” Reynolds said via text message after the Pac-12’s decision was reached. “Sort of depends when the Pac-12 games take place, which I don’t know yet.
“It’s possible we do pods, but it’s also possible we don’t do any. It’s too early to know. We have contracts we have to work around.”
That sort of landscape was exactly what Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior vice president for basketball, indicated that he expected last week after the NCAA announced that schools will effectively be starting two weeks after their original Nov. 10 date and with four fewer games.
“I’m not sure we know exactly how it’s gonna work itself out,” Gavitt told the Star. “What we know is now there are two weeks of potential games that are no longer in the window of permissible dates. Those games will either have to be canceled altogether or potentially rescheduled after Nov. 25. The basketball committee did recommend a minimum of four nonconference games, but they don’t have the authority to mandate that.”
But, no matter how it all works out, Arizona and its Pac-12 cousins learned one thing Thursday: They’re in, for all of it.
UA coach Sean Miller said in a statement that his program was “grateful for the opportunity to compete in a 2020-21 college basketball season” and to prepare for it.
A similar sentiment was likely traveling around rest of the league Thursday.
“What I can tell you is our basketball coaches and ops people are hustling around now trying to get in line with what is best,” Anderson said. “We’re just excited that they have that opportunity now to really work those things out. And we’re gonna get up and get playing some basketball.”