NCAA Division I council approves Nov. 25 as start date for 2020-21 college basketball season

  • 09/16/2020 5:42 pm in

The NCAA Division I council has approved Wednesday, Nov. 25 as the start date for the 2020-21 college basketball season, according to multiple reports.

The council approved the date in a vote today. The new start date replaces the original date of Tuesday, Nov. 10.

According to CBS Sports, the NCAA also decided on the following: a recruiting dead period through Jan. 1, 2021; no scrimmages or exhibition games, a maximum of 27 regular season games and an Oct. 14 start for practice. Beginning Sept. 21, teams can work for eight hours per week on the court, according to Jeff Goodman.

With the start date now established, programs, conferences and broadcast partners will shift their focus to putting together non-conference and conference schedules and also figuring out logistics for multi-team events.

In the case of Indiana, the Hoosiers are scheduled to play in the 2020 Maui Invitational, which has taken place at the Lahaina Civic Center in Lahaina, Hawaii since 1984. Recent reports suggest that event will be moved to either Asheville, North Carolina or Indianapolis.

According to Jon Rothstein, eight early season MTE’s are expected to take place in the Orlando, Florida area without fans. Those events include the Champions Classic, the Jimmy V Classic, the Preseason NIT, Orlando Invitational, Myrtle Beach Invitational, Charleston Classic, Wooden Legacy, and Diamond Head Classic. Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Lake Buena Vista is the current site for the NBA bubble.

Indiana also has signed contracts for early season non-conference games against NJIT and Western Michigan at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall that will either need to be moved or canceled. Rothstein also reported on Sept. 9 that the Big Ten is planning to play non-conference games in November and December.

In its Wednesday announcement regarding the start of the football season, the Big Ten said updates regarding winter sports will be “announced shortly.”

The revised start date should still allow college basketball to pursue a March timeline for the 2021 NCAA tournament. The Final Four is scheduled to take place at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on April 3 and 5. The 2020 NCAA tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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