March Madness: 2020 tourney should be played to start 2020-21 season

With March Madness being canceled due to coronavirus concerns, there is a potential solution for the teams that would’ve been in the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

We are all itching for March Madness during this time of year, and to not have any basketball being played due to (valid) concerns about the spread of COVID-19 just feels wrong. It’s why so many 2020 NCAA Tournament simulations are being done, including one here and the one they’re doing over at Reddit.

But there is a way for us to somewhat salvage the 2020 NCAA Tournament – by playing it as an early season tournament to start next season.

Yes, I know it won’t be the same. The seniors and many key players will be gone, making teams vastly different, and it won’t be for a national championship (handing out two titles in one year is hard no from me, dawg).

That said, these programs should be rewarded for the seasons they had. It’s why many were calling for the Selection Committee to release what would have been the NCAA Tournament bracket on Selection Sunday even though the event had already been cancelled. Some programs wait decades to get their chance on the big stage and several talented teams were going to get their first crack in a long while, whether that be Rutgers or Hofstra or whoever.

There is some familiarity with the idea of having a tournament based on results from the previous season in soccer, particularly Europe. The Union of European Football Associations, or UEFA, holds the Champions League every season, pitting the top teams from all of Europe’s best leagues against each other. Teams qualify based on where they finish in their national league standings in the previous season. UEFA also puts on the Europa League, which is essentially the NIT of European soccer.

Now, this pseudo-tournament obviously wouldn’t be the same for the competing schools as the regular NCAA Tournament, but it would be something. And something is exactly what all college basketball fans need.

The massive void caused by cancelling March Madness will linger all offseason and has only increased the appetite for NCAA hoops. What better way to capitalize on that than by having this early season tournament?

It wouldn’t be too much of a stray from the current rhythm of the college hoops schedule, either, given the increasing large number of non-conference tournaments being played around the Thanksgiving holiday. A good number of the schools that would’ve been in the 2020 NCAA Tournament already have spots in these non-conference events locked in, so this would likely have to be done before the start of games already scheduled, which can be done.

So, with all that being said, here is the proposal:

Start the 2020-21 college basketball season with a tournament featuring the same 68 teams that would’ve made the 2020 NCAA Tournament on October 20, exactly three weeks before the regular season is currently set to being on November 10. CBS can even have the Selection Show on the Sunday leading into the event (October 18) to announce the 68-team field. All automatic bids would be honored to ensure every conference is represented.

Programs can be matched up like normal or, to cut down on travel, there can be four traditional geographic regionals to cut down on travel. For example, the West Region would feature 16 teams that are either on or close to the West Coast, the South would feature the 16 most southern teams, etc. This setup would admittedly make it much more likely for conference foes to face each other, but these would not count as conference games the same way Colorado and Arizona State’s matchup in China this past season was classified as a non-conference game.

From there, the tournament would be played on the same schedule as the NCAA Tournament – First Four games played on Tuesday and Wednesday, first round games played Thursday and Friday, and so on.

This would only be a one-time tournament, but the special circumstances stemming from COVID-19 call for some special changes to the college hoops calendar. COVID-19 could very easily make this a logistical nightmare, too, considering we don’t know when our world will return to normal, but it’s worth a shot.

We’re already in a bad situation without the 2020 NCAA Tournament and nothing is going to completely take away the sting of that. However, this would be our best chance to have something to reward players and programs with, make fans happier, and generate much more excitement about the start of the new season (not to mention how happy it would make the NCAA’s television partners).

And just finding that something for college basketball is a good thing.