Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. We’re well through summer, but unfortunately not well on our way past the questions about the near future of college basketball and, indeed, all of college sports.
We begin with the big news in college sports, where two of the Power 5 conferences made a decision this week. The Big Ten and Pac-12 announced that they were canceling football, with the talk then moving to whether or not playing in the spring is possible. That has changed the game for college basketball, as it must start thinking about this seriously so as to approach this better than those in charge of college football have. To that end, even bubbles are now being discussed in more than just media circles – and we don’t mean the ones that sometimes pop on Selection Sunday.
The Pac-12 has an added layer, though, as they also canceled basketball until January 2021, effectively whacking non-conference games. This surprised some people, especially given the timing, and a story at The Athletic conveys this. Between that and some talk about how they handled the football decision, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott continues to do himself no favors. His seat was thought to be getting hot in recent years while football and men’s basketball floundered, and you have to think this isn’t going to cool it off any.
We also get into the NBA Draft deadline to withdraw coming and going, with a number of teams already projected to be national title contenders getting good news. Also, Kenny Payne is leaving Kentucky for a job as an assistant coach with the New York Knicks, and that job will be filled quickly by former UMass and Drexel head coach Bruiser Flint. We also touch on the tragic death of former Florida State big man Michael Ojo, who Leonard Hamilton and our friend Jeff Goodman both raved about in this recent podcast.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Be sure to tune in again soon as we talk more about college basketball.
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