TCU preparing for a basketball season to unfold much like the football season
The college football season is already a success by some measures amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Every Big 12 school has played at least six games with half the league logging eight. There are schools such as Texas State that have played 11 games. Overall, for all the postponements and cancellations, the season has survived.
That gives TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati faith that a college basketball season can be played in similar fashion. Men’s and women’s college basketball is scheduled to start Wednesday, including both Horned Frogs programs playing games at Schollmaier Arena. The women face Incarnate Word at 1 p.m., while the men face Houston Baptist at 7 p.m.
“I think the college basketball seasons will look a lot like football,” Donati told the Star-Telegram last week. “I think there will be a season played. I think there will be games canceled. I think there will be games rescheduled as we’re seeing now. It’s just going to be continuing to fight through it.”
For now, TCU plans for basketball home games to be played in front of a limited capacity crowd at 25%. The 6,800-seat Schollmaier Arena should be able to accommodate approximately 1,600 each game.
Donati has no plans to increase that number for the foreseeable future. In fact, TCU is planning for spring sports such as baseball and tennis to have a similar capacity limit.
“It’ll be a while, frankly, [before capacity increases],” Donati said. “We probably need the vaccine to be distributed before we go higher. It’s going to be what it’s going to be this year. I still think we can offer a good home-court advantage for our teams, but we are still anxious for better days.”
TCU is scheduled to host 14 home men’s games and 14 home women’s games at Schollmaier Arena.
The maximum number of regular-season basketball games being allowed by the NCAA is 27 this season. Men’s programs can schedule 24 regular-season games and participate in one multiple-team event that includes up to three games for a total of 27; or schedule 25 regular-season games and participate in one multiple-team event that includes up to two games for a total of 27; or schedule 25 regular-season games if a team does not participate in a multiple-team event.
In women’s basketball, teams can schedule 23 regular-season games and participate in one multiple-team event that includes up to four games; or schedule 25 regular-season games if a team does not compete in a multiple-team event.
As of now, the TCU men’s team has 27 regular-season games (18 conference and seven non-conference) plus two games in a multiple-team event — the Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City, Mo., next weekend. The women’s program has 24 regular-season games scheduled with 18 Big 12 and six non-conference.
The goal, of course, is to play all of them.
“The one difference between basketball and football is you’re probably not missing a game or two games, you’re missing a cluster of games — two, three, four or five,” Donati said. “Getting those games rescheduled will be a little more challenging. At the end of the year, you’ll have some teams play 26 games and some teams that may have played 15. That’s going to be interesting to see how the selection committee deals with that.
“But we’ve proven we can co-exist with the virus. We’ve proven we can play through it. Studies have also shown that the virus is not as easily transmissible via contact sports as we probably once thought. We still have to exercise great caution and use all the safety protocols, but we’ll find a way through it.”
That sentiment was echoed by men’s and women’s coaches on a Big 12 conference call last week. TCU men’s coach Jamie Dixon applauded the NCAA for going with a one-site approach to the men’s NCAA Tournament, and believes it’s on those who run the sport to make every effort to play as many games in as safe of an environment as possible.
After all, that’s what the majority of players prefer.
“The main thing you hear from the kids is they want to play,” Dixon said. “They want to do everything they can to play and they want to play games. That’s why they come here. That’s what we’re trying to do and give them every opportunity to perform and live their dreams and follow their dreams.”
This story was originally published November 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
