While their preference remains to host traditional men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in March, NCAA leaders have discussed the details of a postseason event that would put the national champions in a bubble.
Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s former vice president of basketball, said officials had held talks about the details of a bubble, including testing protocols, costs and the ability to use replacement teams as a squad in the field in quarantine. are due to a positive test.
He said the NBA shared its plan to bubble with the NCAA earlier this year.
“It’s something we’ve been talking and studying about for a while since the NBA shared its plan,” Gavitt told ESPN. “We’ve had a chance to see its implementation. We know it works.”
The $ 1 million basketball tournament, the $ 1 million winner-take-all event, used a bubble and replacement teams. All four of his substitutes had to tick after positive tests did the elimination of multiple teams. But TBT has also successfully completed the first basketball bubble event in the United States.
Gavitt’s remarks follow those of NCAA President Mark Emmert, who on Thursday declared that a bubble is a possibility because ‘there are no doubt ways to make it work.’
The concept has also gained steam among coaches. At the intersection of ESPN Radio on Thursday, Kentucky coach John Calipari said a short-lived NCAA tournament could work in a bubble.
“Instead of it being week after week long, maybe it’s short,” he said. “You lose, you’re out of the bubble. You go home.”
However, it is also clear that each bubble format incurs a heavy cost. The NBA ordered reported $ 150 million to its bubble.
“Making it is expensive and complicated,” Gavitt said. “It has to fit in with the university environment.”
But the traditional tournament in March and April remains the goal for the NCAA, which has a “Plan B, C and D,” Gavitt said months after the NCAA was forced to cancel the 2020 installation of its tournament due to COVID-19 .
Gavitt said the whole process requires flexibility. The NCAA would have to start talks with its TV partners to potentially tackle a full-blown sports landscape in March and the potential impact on playing time as college football happens.
“If it has to be adjusted because of a restored college football season,” Gavitt said, “we will have to take that into account as well.”
He also said the NCAA would monitor how communities around potential host sites treat the virus as a traditional tournament prevalent. He said the NCAA would handle tests in a bubble tournament.
College basketball programs should have a better feel for the start date of the season in the coming weeks. Gavitt said he expects the Board of Division I, following a recommendation from the oversight committee, to take a decision by mid-September on the current starting date of September 29 to begin training teams scheduled to play on November 10.
The leaders of the high school football have this fall offered a disjointed message about the state of the sport.
Gavitt said college basketball will benefit from a uniformed approach. If a decision is made about the bubble, players, coaches and other stakeholders will have enough time to consider the plan, he added.
“I think it’s very important for the game to have consensus,” he said. “I think it’s important. This season and even the tournament will probably be incomplete.”
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