NCAA D-I Council votes to begin college basketball season on Nov. 25

The NCAA’s Division I Council voted on Wednesday to make Nov. 25 the official start date of the 2020-21 college basketball season, which is not a surprise; among the options being considered, this date was deemed most likely.

Teams can begin to practice on Oct. 14.

Additionally, there will be no scrimmages or exhibition games this season. Teams must play a minimum of 13 regular-season games but no more than 27. The NCAA will also “recommend” four non-conference games for every team—it remains to be seen just how committed power-conference schools will be in arranging those contests.

These are just the basic guidelines; the conferences are left to fill in the details. If the ACC maintains its current league schedule, that leaves room for seven non-conference games. I could see the ACC (or another league) opting to skip non-conference games while expanding conference play.

We also know that the owners of various early-season events are interested in making them work in a bubble environment, potentially bringing together a bunch of schools to play a few non-conference games all in one place. Some ACC schools could be keen to take advantage of something like that, and there will be others that don’t even have the opportunity, so that’s another issue to be sorted.

Everybody’s gonna have to get to work quickly on their respective scheduling formats.