How bubbly is this going to be? Are teams not allowed to leave their hotel rooms in between games? Are media allowed to attend?
Marriott properties, an official NCAA corporate partner, will house most of the tournament teams. The properties are connected to the convention center via skywalks and within a controlled environment. All teams will be housed on dedicated hotel floors, with physically distanced meeting and dining rooms, as well as secure transportation to and from competition venues
Some team is going to shoot poorly and lose their first round game at Lucas Oil and then their fans will complain that the football stadium backdrop messed with their depth perception.
(unless of course it’s Michigan)
But for realz, using two courts at LOS will allow games to start as soon as the other one ends without the necessary warmup time in between that invariably throws off later start times. This is a good idea.
If they’re keeping the Final Four dates the same then I really hope they try to keep the rest of the usual tournament schedule intact.
I would expect that there will be a larger gap between Selection Sunday and the first round (for testing/quarantine) and then a condensed schedule.
Wouldn’t make any sense to keep the same schedule.
I don’t think their television partners will want them to be playing first/second round games during the early weekdays if they can avoid it. They’ll definitely have a say in it.
If Archie & the Hoosiers can’t find their way into the tournament this year, I think he’s got to be out. No way that fan base & internal powers tolerate missing out on the biggest basketball event the state has had maybe ever.
Interesting trying to figure out what a condensed schedule would look like. If they waited 10 days to start games to set up the “bubble” you could play games everyday from March 25th through April 2 to set up the final 4 on April 3rd.
This would create unfair advantages in the later rounds when some teams would have 1 day of prep vs zero though.
The first four games could potentially be played the day after selection Sunday and then quarantine for 10 days and play round 1 on March 26.