UNC Basketball: NCAA announces college basketball start date

The countdown to the start of the 2020-2021 college basketball season has officially begun.

On Thursday, the NCAA set an official start date for the upcoming college basketball season.

College basketball programs can begin the 2020-2021 season on Wednesday, November 25. The decision was made with the health and safety of the student-athletes, coaches and all personnel involved in mind.

When discussing the best possible plan for the start of the season, the NCAA Division I Council took a lot of things into consideration, particularly the amount of students on campus. By the November 25 start date, the majority of Division I schools will have wrapped up their fall semester or will release students for in-person instruction, which greatly lowers on-campus population.

With the majority of students sent home for most of December and a portion of January (approximately six weeks), the council found this as the perfect window to get the season underway.

Full preseason practices are allowed to begin on October 14. Over the 42-day span before the start of the season, teams are allowed to hold 30 practices. Additionally, programs are allowed to hold a “transition period,” which allows them to participate in strength and conditioning workouts along with some skill instruction for a maximum of 12 hours per week from September 21 to October 13.

The NCAA Division I Council also made changes to some rules regarding the number of games played. In regards to the maximum amount of games, the number was reduced by four, limiting teams to just 24 or 25 games (plus one multiple-team event). In order to quality for NCAA Championship selection, the minimum number of games is now 13, which is reduced by 50% from the original number.

Along with these new guidelines, teams are not allowed to scrimmage or hold exhibition contests prior to the November 25 start date. Although that date is not the set day that teams must start their seasons, it is a hard deadline as to when they can actually begin play.

To put things into perspective, the start of the season is a few weeks delayed to what we’ve seen in the past. Last season, the Tar Heels opened up their season on November 6, so Roy Williams’ team will have to wait a little longer to play some regular season contests.

Regardless, the plan is to play college basketball this season, which is always a good thing! As the NCAA plans for the upcoming season, the goal is to play a full season, including a March Madness tournament to cap off the campaign.

We’ll wait for the official schedule, but it’s never too early to begin the countdown to the start of the NCAA college basketball season.

Continue to follow the Keeping It Heel team for all the latest news and updates regarding the UNC basketball program.