We need more info on the ACC’s proposal of an all-in hoops tourney.

Let’s say it was Mike Krzyzewski’s idea, which it probably was, to celebrate college basketball – “our game,” he calls it – with all Division I teams competing in the 2021 NCAA tournament.

That’s 346 teams, from the top 20 to the worst 20. I understand why Coach K wants to celebrate their game in what he calls “far from a regular season” due to whatever is left of the coronavirus by the time they throw it up to start play.  You think additional TV money might be involved?

If he said the celebration was because Black Lives Matter and the college game is mostly made up of African-American players, if not coaches, that makes sense. But we need a little deeper dive into what the 15 ACC basketball coaches signed off on and what they’ll propose.

Certainly, not in a bubble. Considering all the D-1 teams, coaches and traveling parties, that is somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 people converging on whatever bubble they can create, and half of them will go home after 40 minutes of basketball.

Now we’re down to 173 teams, and another half will be gone after their second game. That leaves 86.5 teams. So you know where I’m going; that won’t work unless the first two or three rounds of the tournament are played on the court of the higher-seeded teams. Maybe to make up for what we’ll miss on the front end.

So what do Coach K and his 14 cadets have in mind? I get it, give everyone a chance to play in the Big Dance. But isn’t that what we do anyway as about 300 schools that aren’t realistically fighting for automatic or at-large bids can shock the world by winning their conference tourneys?

I like the idea of celebrating the game we all love and are keeping our fingers crossed that there are no serious outbreaks in football, where the players don’t spend as much time next to each other and wear helmets and uniforms that cover most of their bodies.

If football doesn’t work, basketball really doesn’t have a chance before we have a vaccine. So maybe we wait to celebrate until then.

 

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