SI Insider: NCAA Basketball Considering Starting Season Early

NCAA Executive Asks Conferences to Consider Starting Basketball Season Two Weeks Early

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 I talked to NCAA vice president of basketball Dan Gabbitt

00:11 on Monday, and he confirmed that he has reached out

00:15 to the commissioners of all the Division I conferences

00:19 and to members of the Oversight Committee for Men's Basketball

00:22 and said, hey, let's do the opposite of what college

00:25 football is thinking.

00:26 Let's talk about starting earlier and moving up

00:29 the season by two weeks.

00:31 I think Gabbitt is looking at this

00:32 and seeing that there's almost certainly going

00:34 to be games that are not played during the winter break

00:39 with so many schools shutting down

00:40 campus between Thanksgiving and sometime in January.

00:45 Some of those games may be canceled

00:47 if the basketball teams are sent home as opposed

00:50 to being left on campus.

00:52 So he would like to start on October 27

00:54 playing games as opposed to November 10.

00:57 That would give him opportunity for teams not only to play

01:00 some of those games, but maybe some of the big non-conference

01:02 matchups that would be lost somewhere

01:04 in that late November through December

01:07 into early January time period to be played earlier.

01:10 So Gabbitt is waiting to hear basically responses

01:13 and feedback from the various conferences.

01:15 He said it would be really a conference by conference,

01:18 team by team sort of decision if they wanted to do it or not.

01:21 But it may be a chance for some teams

01:23 to get some big games played that

01:25 wouldn't have happened if they're going to have their

01:27 school shut down during the midwinter.

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