Syracuse Basketball: Many head coaches want a relatively normal season

With the pandemic putting the Syracuse basketball 2020-21 season into question, a poll of hundreds of coaches sheds light on what they want to occur.

As the debate rages on over whether collegiate sports will take place this fall around the country, there are also many opinions regarding the Syracuse basketball 2020-21 campaign.

Some, like Iona head coach and two-time national champion Rick Pitino, have suggested that for hoops, the NCAA should push back the upcoming term and start it in January, while only suiting up for conference contests.

I’ve gone on record in saying that if nixing the non-conference calendar enables 2020-21 to happen in some capacity, it would prove unfortunate, but I would support such a proposal. A regular season is better than no season.

To that end, well-respected basketball analyst Jeff Goodman recently polled more than 250 men’s head coaches at the Division I level and found out a few interesting tidbits about what these coaches would like to see take place in 2020-21.

According to Goodman, 42 percent responded that they would still like to try to play a normal campaign.

Another 32 percent are in favor of playing both non-conference and league games, but they would like to have the term commence in January.

Nearly one-quarter of those coaches polled (24 percent) want the stanza to begin in January, and they would like to compete in only conference duels. This is what Pitino has suggested.

Finally, 2 percent want the 2020-21 season to get canceled altogether.

I don’t pretend to know whether Syracuse basketball head coach Jim Boeheim participated in Goodman’s survey, but I do feel fairly confident in saying that Boeheim likely wants to play a full 2020-21 campaign.

I did find it intriguing that almost three-quarters of those who responded to the poll, or 74 percent, are hoping for a term that includes non-conference and league battles.

These non-conference games, for Syracuse basketball and others, often include pre-season tournaments where teams travel around the country or even outside of the continental United States, like to the Bahamas. Such travel, amid the pandemic, certainly could prove logistically challenging, to say the least.

The Orange, as we’ve detailed, has a non-conference schedule to date that features LSU, Mercer, Georgetown, UMBC, Jacksonville State and Green Bay.