Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis – July 17, 2020

Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. As the summer rolls on, the reasons for optimism about the upcoming season are fading in light of some recent developments.

As conditions improved, optimism that a college football season in some form rose, especially as schools allowed voluntary athletic activity. But those conditions took a different turn recently, and as was the case in basketball in March, the Ivy League was the first domino to fall as they canceled all fall semester athletic activity, which includes basketball. That means there will be little, if any, non-league play in the best case scenario.

At first, the thought was that it might be different for the power conferences, who have a little more riding on this. The Ivy League doesn’t compete in the FCS playoffs, and schools lose money on football. But it’s starting to look like it won’t be any different other than timing, as encapsulated in a recent column by Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports. Already, the Big Ten and Pac-12 have gone to conference-only schedules, and it also doesn’t help that Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott has tested positive for COVID-19.

Through all of this, though, there is some optimism in the NCAA office, as Dan Gavitt expresses in this story. For now, at least, the college basketball season is to go on as planned save for conferences that make a decision like that of the Ivy League.

We then get into a few other matters, such as another top prospect going to the NBA G League, summer recruiting for 2020, the NABC’s excellent hire of Craig Robinson to succeed Jim Haney as executive director (including an unfortunate misspeak by yours truly, who should know better!), and St. Thomas making the jump from Division III to Division I next year and joining the Summit League.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Be sure to tune in again soon as we talk more about college basketball.