Syracuse basketball could land in non-conference bubble at Mohegan Sun

Syracuse basketball may find itself among a bunch of powerful teams playing within a non-conference bubble in Connecticut.

As the NCAA prepares to reveal the official start of the 2020-21 season in mid-September, media reports are emerging that Syracuse basketball could wind up in a non-conference bubble with numerous of the sport’s heavyweights in either November or December.

CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein and Adam Zagoria, writing on forbes.com, are among those sending out tweets or publishing articles that speak to the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., as a potential destination for a non-conference bubble to host several pre-season tournaments, including the Gotham Classic, where the Orange is slated to face LSU out of the Southeastern Conference.

The original start date for the 2020-21 college basketball stanza is Nov. 10, however, Rothstein, Zagoria and others have indicated that Nov. 25 or Dec. 4 may become potential new kick-off dates for the upcoming term.

As Rothstein says in a tweet, a non-conference bubble at the Mohegan Sun Arena could feature, besides the ‘Cuse and LSU, a range of squads, such as Villanova, Baylor, Michigan, UConn, West Virginia, Florida, Purdue, N.C. State, Notre Dame and Georgia Tech.

Syracuse basketball and a host of other quality programs may reside in a non-conference bubble at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

“We think we have a facility set up that could work if all comes together,” Greg Procino, vice president of basketball operations at the Naismith Hall of Fame, told Zagoria.

Procino added, “We need to be respectful of the NCAA and conference timeline. This could work for multiple days of games with multiple teams. We could likely accommodate 16 to 20 teams at one time.”

Zagoria writes that a Nov. 25 or Dec. 4 commencement of the season, rather than Nov. 10, “would allow for a ‘soft bubble’ on campus where most of the students would be gone.”

"He goes on to quote Syracuse basketball head coach Jim Boeheim, who said in a Zagoria piece on forbes.com from earlier this month, “You’re not going to put them in a bubble for a month or two months, that’s not going to happen. What you could do is [at] Thanksgiving break, every campus is a bubble. The students are gone. So in 6-8 weeks in December and part of January, you could play a lot of games in eight weeks. That’s why I think it’s crucial for basketball to start right at Thanksgiving break and play those 6-8 weeks.”"

Boeheim makes really excellent points, and how the novel coronavirus pandemic possibly alters the Orange’s schedule in 2020-21 is something that we’ll continue to monitor.