HoosierPal

We can both guess, but my guess, right now, is yes. That's based on reading the tea leaves. Michigan State, Belmont and SLU are the only remaining - now homeless- of the original 8. You know Izzo wants decent profile, yet winnable games and he is in the ear of ESPN. MSU is playing Duke on Dec 1 in Orlando in a stand alone. MSU, I assume, is therefore staying in the Orlando Hoops festival. Now will they feed another team into these three or use these three as fill in's. Per Rothstein, all events will be four teams, likely two games.

No final information on that possible game. As Stu said Friday, there are a lot of scenarios still possible. We are playing Boston College as scheduled.

Where is our normal Press Box reporter? I picked up the Earl Austin segment today. An interesting section on the Bills, with Frank saying he could see the Bills, now that they didn't get Nesbitt, to hold off on HS players and pivot to JC/Transfers. [This was just discussion and not putting out a rumor.] Earl said yes he could see that. He feels the biggest loss will be Perkins, needing someone who can put the ball in the basket. He says Thatch, is a Jordan Goodwin type player, an athletic defender, character guy. (He said he isn't Goodwin but will fill that role.) Okoro, Bell and Linssen will fill in for French. Rumor was that Yaya Keita has been hurt. No details, but yes, he has gone down. "It breaks my heart">Earl.

Ah, so we now know that we don’t know.

Here is a guess, but a somewhat educated guess. (Maybe 66% correct?) Belmont, MSU, Cincy, Furman, Loyola, Mizzou, Utah State, Hawaii, North Texas, St. Mary's, San Diego state, Seattle, UCF. I'm sure I have missed some, and maybe some of these are already slotted. There could also be some threesome's needing a fourth team. If anyone has updates or corrections, please supply. I wonder how much input any coaching staff has on this reshuffle? Is it all ESPN, or are the schools being consulted?

Luke was a solid player for Davidson, when he was in uniform. I wish him well at Western KY. (The Hilltoppers will be pretty good.)

Who will be our foursome?

I doubt if we will see the Spartans. X and Siena dropped and it appears that Gonzaga and Auburn have been shuffled out of our original bracket. Boise State has been moved out also, as they will play Kansas, with Seton Hall and UCLA the other two. So of the original 8, only SLU, Michigan State and Belmont remain. It seems they are breaking up the original eight teams to be feeders into other brackets. Of course, they could bring in a P6 and have it added to us three. I haven't seen that Mizzou has been shuffled out of their bracket. I'd take them to fill out this foursome. I saw today that Charlotte (in Mizzou's original bracket so it is being busted) was moved into the tourney with Tennessee, VCU and Penn State. And Houston has been shuffled to face Texas Tech in the 'new' Gonzaga foursome. TxTech's movement left Cincy as the only leftover in their original foursome. I'm guessing we will hear very soon what the final deck will look like. They seem to be leaking two or three revised MTE's daily. I've seen that Dayton, Davidson and Richmond all have some very nice OOC games lined up. The former two in off site MTE events, and Richmond in the KY MTE. As long as we don't get stuck with some 300+ NET teams, we will be fine.

I did some research and it appears SEMO, SIUE and MO State are available for an MTE at Chaifetz. Let’s rock!

If those four are in a four team event (specifically Gonzaga and Auburn), then our Orlando bracket is busted. What might have been.......

The more approved, the better for the league

Lot of good stuff here. First, the A10 v Mountain West challenge is off. BUT, San Diego State is scheduled, as of now, to be in Orlando, so you never know - maybe a single stand alone game can be set up. Orlando is being reshuffled by ESPN, and you know what that means. They want to maximize eyeballs on the TV set. I have no idea where that leaves the Bills. A number of the P6 schools likely would not desire a 'quality mid-major' addition. Example: Duke, Kansas and Kentucky are all in Orlando. Michigan State is a consensus Top 20 team. If we aren't in a bracket with them, they won't elect to play us in a stand alone. Why would these schools have any interest in a game versus SLU? Those are the schools that already believe they will qualify for the NCAA based on their conference schedule and their one or two P6 quality games already set up. Other marginal P6's might be willing to take that chance. We need to understand that we are at the mercy of ESPN on who we end up playing. They have seen their Orlando Bubble events erode, and they will do what they need to do in order to help out the bottom line.

Three weeks ago, SLU had to throw away the OOC schedule and start over. Some teams (on the previous schedule) are in cities/areas where home games are not yet possible. Some teams are not playing OOC's. Some teams are in leagues playing 20 games, minimizing OOC games. Coach said BC game is still ON for Dec 12. Orlando is still ON, but it is changing as we know. Some teams dropped due to various quarantine issues, coming into Orlando and then going back to their home city. So we know Indiana State, BC and Orlando are on the schedule. After that, keep guessing. The recruiting ban is set until Jan 1, and then it will be revisited. He feels bad for the players who can't be seen. Ford isn't too concerned, as he has 8 underclassmen on the roster. He includes Russell in the freshman/8 unerclassmen discussion, as if he is a scholarship player. But they are still recruiting as always.

Well, here we go. Read Goodman's last sentence. Who knows who we will play in Orlando.

Wow. This is depressing. Ten teams have dropped out of the various Orlando Hoops MTE's. (I'm not sure why he combined these four MTE's into a single entity.) No way those 10 will be replaced. They will combine the holdovers into a different set of brackets. I wonder who we will end up playing. https://watchstadium.com/college-basketballs-2020-21-events-schedule-10-07-2020/ 22 new MTE's are on this list.

I have the same thought. But it just not Orlando where this is happening. St. John's long ago bailed out of Orlando. Arkansas and Louisville just dumped out of their MTE in Vegas. I hope the organizers have a long term memory when filling next season's fields occur. I imagine ESPN is scrambling in an attempt to save their 8 tourney bubble. If Goodman's rumor is correct, they are looking at completely shuffling the deck. That could put the Bills in a not so desirable situation. About the only thing I am certain of is that Ford's staff is on the phones 24/7 trying to salvage an OOC.

This Orlando Bubble changes hourly. Here is the latest. Goodman's last statement isn't good. Let your imagination run on this.

It looks like Xavier is now hosting a four team MTE with Toledo, Bradley and Oakland rather than going to Orlando. Gonzaga is playing Baylor in Indy on Dec 5, not in Orlando in an overrun game as first thought.

Didn't want to start a new thread for this, but this Jeff Goodman 45 min podcast with Chris Mooney has a lot of interesting comments. Mooney talks about the challenges he is having scheduling, how he is looking forward to playing at Kentucky with maybe the oldest starting five in American, how his game at Cincy may fall through due to the AAC, how Grant, Francis and Sherod all were heavily recruited to leave Richmond as Grad Transfers, how he can't figure out the waiver process, and what the likely new transfer rule will do to mid-major basketball. Goodman is convinced that winter sports athletes will all get an extra year. He asked Mooney how do you go about signing five new guys and then have your five return. Mooney says not all five of his starters would return...interesting. By and large, the guys you want to stay will leave and the guys you want to leave will stay. Do you newly signed send guys to prep school? Schools have to have the money to expand their roster. A lot of schools won't be able to handle expanded rosters. Goodman asked Mooney how it was being on the hot seat last few seasons, with a fire Chris Mooney website. Mooney said, 'My Dad said he had nothing to do with the website.' Mooney said Tyler Burton has made a big jump and could be one of the best players in Richmond history. He would be the best player on many of Richmond's past teams as a soph, but he will be 6th man on this team. Talked about Covid testing, and how this today differs from state to state. Mooney expects this to be put in black and white, with little variation through the teams through the new rapid test. With this new test, 'can you test out of quarantine'? If all you have is close contact trace with a positive, can you test out with negative tests.

Just sayin'. Entering into week 5 of NCAA football, there have been 24 games canceled or postponed due to the virus. There is an additional list, of who knows how many games, where a team played with shortened rosters. It will effect basketball. It's huge wildcard out there that isn't going away anytime soon.

Yes it does plus it also gets some badly needed $ for some low majors. Just saw another two, one at Kentucky with Detroit, Hartford and Richmond. Cal’s son goes to Detroit. The second one is at Duke, with Howard, Elon and Bellarmine. (Duke isn't playing Howard with it's 5 star recruit Makur Maker.)

The trend this week is for a whole bunch of P5's dumping out of previously scheduled MTE's and setting up individual, campus site events. Here are three in process today. The small guys are needed to fill out the events. https://twitter.com/GoodmanHoops/status/1313503250927292417?s=20

Basketball oversight committees maintain maximum contest limitations Current legislation passed in September remains unchanged October 5, 2020 6:15pmGreg Johnson The Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Oversight Committees on Monday reaffirmed their positions on reducing by four the maximum number of games that teams can play in the upcoming 2020-21 season. In men’s basketball, teams can compete in a maximum of 25 regular-season games if a team does not participate in a multiple-team event; 25 regular-season games and one multiple-team event that includes up to two games; or 24 regular-season games and one multiple-team event that includes up to three games. In women’s basketball, teams can compete in a maximum of 25 regular-season games if a team does not compete in a multiple-team event or 23 regular-season games and one multiple-team event that includes up to four games. The committees, which met virtually, thoroughly discussed whether a blanket waiver should be applied to permit a school to participate in a maximum of 27 games with no multiple-team events, if certain conditions were met. Committee members are aware of the scheduling difficulties teams are experiencing due to the uncertainty wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Division I Council supported the oversight committee’s maximum contest limitations proposal in September,” NCAA Senior Vice President for Basketball Dan Gavitt said. “The oversight committee members believe amending the legislation now could further delay the scheduling process and possibly create unintended consequences.” While the waiver process exists for schools to request relief from maximum contest limitations, the Division I Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee and Division I Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee have indicated they are unlikely to support such waivers.

All I have done is bookmarked Goodman and Rothstein. I don't have a twitter account, but I read theirs. Obviously there is a ton of unknowns on the possibility of an extra year. You would have to expand rosters, but that will make it uneven across the board. A team with no seniors gets no additional roster spots, while a team with 3, 4 or 5 seniors gets up to 5 extra roster spots if they all stay? And this expanded roster would last for four years, right? So does the 13 team roster have an advantage or disadvantage over a 16 team roster? Expanded rosters would screw over a lot of freshmen. Lots of fun stuff to think about. And what happens if, no when, Team A plays all 27 games, gets into the NCAA tourney, and has a nice run, but Team B gets only 10 games in due to the virus and can't field a team for the NCAA? Does Team A get the same treatment as Team B. Confusing. Add this extra year possibility into the free transfer rule next season and the NIL pay. That will make this board explode.