NCAA VP of Basketball confident college basketball will begin on schedule

It’s been a rough few days for college football fans, but one of the biggest names at the NCAA is confident college basketball will begin on schedule. NCAA Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt told CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander that as long as basketball can be played safely next year, the NCAA Tournament will happen.

“Right now, the hope and plan still is to start the season on time in November,” Gavitt said. “First and foremost, we’re only going to do anything that’s safe, and so we know that we don’t control the virus, the virus controls us. But if there’s basketball being played anywhere safely in 2021, we will have March Madness.”

Of course, a lot can happen between now and November, but Gavitt believes time is on college basketball’s side when it comes to the coronavirus.

“We’re only four months removed from when the tournament was canceled,” Gavitt said. “Think about all we’ve learned since then. I think there will be due consideration to anything that’s necessitated by the virus — again because it controls us, we don’t control it — but there’s time and there’s a lot of learning that can be done from others that are trying to get restarted right now. And we’ll make better decisions, I think, by exercising that patience and making sure we learn from others.”

Gavitt’s remarks follow the men’s basketball committee’s recent summit, during which Mitch Barnhart (the chair for the 2020-21 season) and other members discussed hypotheticals and scenarios. All of this optimism is refreshing, but it’s worth mentioning that Norlander also cited skepticism from coaches about college basketball happening this year, specifically one coach who has zero confidence the season will be played at all.

Sigh. Read it all for yourself at the link below.

[CBS Sports]