NCAA sets new 2020 start date for basketball season

The Division I Council approved a new NCAA basketball start date of Nov. 25.

NCAA basketball was tired of football conferences returning getting all the headlines apparently.

On Wednesday, the Division I Council voted to set a start date for the 2020-21 NCAA basketball season on Nov. 25, a few days after the long-awaited 2020 NBA Draft.

Practices can begin as early as Oct. 14 while the D1 Council offered three scheduling options for men’s basketball and two for the women’s side.

NCAA basketball teams have the go-ahead to begin their seasons on Nov. 25.

The D1 Council explicitly targeted the late November date because of fall class schedules. With most schools planning to end in-person instruction by Thanksgiving, and others moving to online classes, they hope to create “a more controlled and less populated campus environment that may reduce the risk of COVID-19”

That’s a far cry from the statements made by school administrators earlier this year about holding sports only if students could also be on campus. Now the absence of students is what will allow basketball to come back.

For some conferences, there will still be questions to answer. When the Pac-12 canceled their football season, they also axed the prospect of any fall sports being played until Jan. 1. That decision included basketball.

A lot of things have changed since then. On Wednesday morning the Big Ten officially announced their decision to restart their football season. By the afternoon, the Pac-12 had also made strides towards getting approval from state and local officials to return to practice.

If Pac-12 football successfully kicks off in mid-November, as currently targeted, there would be little reason to hold back on the basketball front.

The Big Ten will certainly be excited to see their teams return to the court shortly behind their football programs taking the field. They would have had double-digit entries into the NCAA Tournament before it was canceled in the spring.

Long story short: College basketball is on track to return by Thanksgiving which means March Madness is not far either.