NCAA Announces Start Date for College Basketball

The NCAA has officially announced its start time for the 2020-2021 college basketball season, along with other guidelines.

The NCAA announced on Wednesday night that the 2020-2021 college basketball season will open up on November 25th.

The vote of this date was led by the fact that "an estimated 76% of college campuses will have their student bodies entirely off-campus by then, versus an estimated 43% on Nov. 20." According to CBS Sports.

The NCAA also noted that teams can play a maximum of 27 games if they participate in a multi-team event, or 24-25 games if not. On any other given year, the maximum amount of games to play is 31. The NCAA is also requiring a minimum of 13 games played to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. The start date for "full-blown" is set for October 14th.

COVID protocols are expected to be announced at a later date.

NCAA senior vice president Dan Gavitt also told CBS Sports that the start date was tentative, and could change barring any other new COVID data, which can be voted on at the next Division 1 council meeting in October.

The Georgia Bulldogs currently have 10 non-conference games on the schedule along with 16 SEC matchups. That puts Georgia at 1 game below the cutoff before the SEC Tournament, meaning the Bulldogs will likely have to make some revisions to their schedule. 

Georgia originally planned to open their schedule with Sam Houston State on November 10th. Georgia also has a game already scheduled on the tentative NCAA start date on the road versus SMU.

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