The NCAA is expecting to have an answer by mid-September over whether or not the 2020-21 college basketball season can start as scheduled amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt announced in a statement on Monday. Gavitt, in the statement, emphasized that a safe and competitive college basketball season is the "ultimate goal" as the decision looms.
"In the coming weeks, the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Oversight Committees will take the lead with me in a collaborative process of finalizing any recommendations for consideration by the NCAA Division I Council for the start of the college basketball season," Gavitt wrote in the statement. "By mid-September, we will provide direction about whether the season and practice start on time or a short-term delay is necessitated by the ongoing pandemic.
"We recognize that we are living and operating in an uncertain time, and it is likely that mid-September will be just the first milestone for many important decisions pertaining to the regular season and the NCAA basketball championships. While circumstances may warrant flexibility resulting in a different and perhaps imperfect season, the ultimate goal is to safely provide student-athletes and teams with a great college basketball experience."
Schools in at least one major conference are already guaranteed to have their basketball seasons impacted. The Pac-12 announced earlier in the month that it would not hold athletic competition for the remainder of the 2020 calendar year due to the pandemic.
Both the 2019-2020 men's and women's college basketball seasons ended without national champions, as the NCAA canceled all winter and spring championships for the previous school year in March due to the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States. The decision marked the first time that the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament -- better known as "March Madness" -- was not held since its inception in 1939.
Last week, NCAA Presiden Mark Emmert revealed that there will be no NCAA championships in fall sports this year, with FBS football being the only possible exception. Due to a number of conferences already canceling their fall seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of teams that would be vying for a national championship has been trimmed significantly. Because of that, the legitimacy of fall championships would be very much in question, per Emmert. The only fall sport that could potentially crown a national champion in the 2020 season would be FBS football, but two power conferences -- the Pac-12 and Big Ten -- have already called off their fall seasons.
“We cannot now, at this point, have fall NCAA championships because there’s not enough schools participating,” Emmert said. “The Board of Governors also said if you don’t have half the schools playing the sport, you can’t have a legitimate championship. We can’t, in any NCAA Division-I championship sport now, which is everything other than FBS football, that goes on in the fall. Sadly and tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall. Full stop.”