Not the first big crowd turnout regarding a COVID-19 shutdown either.
Italian teams playing in the Europa League (Roma and Inter Milan) have had their games postponed. I feel like this is a bad sign for the rest of the Europa League/Champions League, which in turn would be massive precedent for other events like the NCAA Tournament.
Back on the topic of college basketball. Stanford plays Cal tonight, then UCLA tomorrow if they win. Could that Stanford/UCLA game be a theoretical ‘play-in’ game for the tournament? BracketMatrix has Stanford as the third-to-last team in and UCLA as the first team out.
Why? They were only going to have about 12 fans show up anyway. 
Was this one of the pay-to-play tournaments?
Yes, the CBI and the CIT (College Insider Tournament) are pay-to-play.
WHO finally declared a pandemic.
Late as ever. They downplayed the Ebola outbreak in West Africa for many months, cozy in Geneva, while groups like Doctors Without Borders had been on the front lines fighting the disease and reporting the truth about it.
What’s the minimum number of people needed for a basketball game? 3-4 refs, a clock and score operator, and who else?
What is that. Probably 35-40 people total? It does suck a lot for those guys knowing that most likely nothing would happen if they just play the games with the bare minimum. But I understanding not wanting to take the risk.
Zero refs for a B1G game. You can just place a whistle around an old shoe and put it on the court. Practically the same results. Maybe less incompetent.
Each team, staff, and trainers are probably about 20-25 each. 4 officials + clock operator. Facilities people: maybe 10-20? Media production: maybe 10-20?
I always figured the B1G relied on a magic 8 ball to call some of their games.
I know some of these tournaments don’t draw a ton of fans, but there will still need to be some offsetting of the costs of operating the tournament arenas. Ticket sales would have helped somewhat.
You don’t need media production for a basketball game and I’m sure facilities people can be kept rather minimal if necessary. Just one person to make sure the lights stay on.
Theoretically you could also leave the trainers, student managers, etc. at home if the goal is to minimize the number of people. While not ideal, I’m sure the teams would’ve been open to that idea instead of outright cancelling.
Too great of a chance of being right.