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College Basketball Regular Season To Begin On Nov. 25

Division I college basketball programs have a baseline for a start date, number of games and a practice schedule following an NCAA ruling.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Division I college basketball programs have a baseline for a start date, number of games and a practice schedule following an NCAA ruling.

The NCAA Division I Council approved moving the first contest date in Division I men’s basketball back 15 days to Nov. 25 for the upcoming 2020-21 season. According to the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Oversight Committee, the date moving was done with the intention to have contests begin when at least 75 percent of Division I schools will have concluded their fall terms or moved remaining instruction and exams online, creating a more controlled and less populated campus environment that may reduce the risk of the coronavirus that can occur between the players and the broader student body population.

“The new season start date near the Thanksgiving holiday provides the optimal opportunity to successfully launch the basketball season,” said NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt. “It is a grand compromise of sorts and a unified approach that focuses on the health and safety of student-athletes competing towards the 2021 Division I basketball championships.”

Don’t expect Illinois head coach Brad Underwood to release his 2020-21 non-conference schedule anytime soon and he and his other 13 league colleagues will now wait to see if the Big Ten Conference will decide to open with conference games in that late November to early January window.

“I think getting league games in is the most important part,” Underwood said earlier this week to Big Ten Network host Dave Revsine. “There could be some potential (COVID-19) challenges as we move into late January and early February when the normal students come back. It all depends on when we start but the consistency of trying to get league games in right away just makes sense and do that in what I call the soft bubble.”

Given that the season will start 15 days later than originally scheduled, the NCAA reduced the maximum number of games in this upcoming campaign by four. All teams can now schedule 24 regular-season games and participate in one multiple-team event that includes up to three games (which is the category Illinois will be placed in after accepting an invitation in the Emerald Coast Classic). Other scheduling options are 25 regular-season games and the participation in one multiple-team event that includes up to two games or if a team does not participate in a multiple-team event.

With COVID-19 potentially causing postponements and cancellation of games throughout this 2020-21 season, the NCAA Division I Council set the minimum requirement of contests to be considered for NCAA tournament at 13 games against Division I competition.

Programs can begin preseason practice on Oct. 14 and will have 42 days to conduct a maximum of 30 practices. During this time, players can work out up to 20 hours per week, four hours per day, and must have one day off per week. From Sept. 21 to Oct. 13, teams may participate in strength and conditioning activities, team meetings and do skill instruction for up to 12 hours a week, with an eight-hour limit on the skill instruction. Players must have two days off per week during this near month-long transition period.

“We’ve always had everything mapped out for what our preseason would look like for five or six weeks and what we wanted to do on each of those days,” Underwood said on BTN. “We kept everything in very small groups so we didn’t have mass quarantines if those situations arose. It’s been very different, there’s no doubt about that, and yet our guys have adapted great and our coaches have adapted great.”

One final scheduling restriction to this fall is the prohibiting of Division I schools to play the traditional dark scrimmage before the start of the season. Last October, Illinois played at South Carolina as Underwood to his Illini squad to play his former boss where he was an assistant for the 2012–2013 season under current Gamecocks head coach Frank Martin.

The 2020-21 season was scheduled to tip off on Tuesday, Nov. 10 in Chicago with the annual Champions Classic featuring games of Duke vs. Michigan State and Kansas vs. Kentucky. However, Jon Rothstein reported Tuesday, “according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation”, Orlando will now host eight early season events in college basketball during the first few weeks of the regular season following the success of the NBA bubble in that location.

In addition to the Champions Classic, the Jimmy V Classic, Preseason NIT, Orlando Invitational, Myrtle Beach Invitational, Charleston Classic, Wooden Legacy, and Diamond Head Classic will all be played at Walt Disney World in Orlando.

Following the NCAA’s announcement Wednesday, it is still unknown whether the Emerald Coast Classic event featuring Illinois, Florida, Iowa State and Oregon will still be played on the campus of Northwest Florida State College in Niceville, Florida on Thanksgiving weekend of Nov. 27-29.

Illinois, which returns easily the most talented returning team of Underwood’s four-year tenure in Champaign, is slated to play a return game vs. Arizona (in State Farm Center), a Big Ten/ACC Challenge game on the road, a Gavitt Game matchup yet to be announced and the annual Braggin’ Rights rivalry game against Missouri in St. Louis in its known non-conference slate. However, due to the uncertain nature of those non-conference matchups due to COVID-19 protocols, Illinois athletics officials are declining requests to provide information on its non-conference matchups for the Illini in the 2020-21 season.