St. John’s basketball: Start date for 2020-21 season likely to be delayed

The St. John’s basketball program could be looking at a short delay to the 2020-21 season because of the coronavirus pandemic.

As sports return across the United States, there are clearly some obstacles that leagues will have to go through and it’s looking more and more likely that the NCAA will delay the start of the college basketball season.

Thankfully, it’s only a short delay that could affect the men’s and women’s college basketball season that was originally scheduled to start on November 10.

Jon Rothstein, a college basketball insides for CBS Sports reported on Tuesday that the Men’s and Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee will propose a November 25 start date to the season.

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In the proposition, Rothstein also reported that there would be no scrimmages, exhibitions, or joint practices this season because of the coronavirus pandemic.

While the short delay to the season would have an impact on the St. John’s basketball program, there would be no direct hit to the Red Storm because neither the men’s nor women’s program has announced a non-conference schedule as of yet.

The men’s program has scheduled games against NJIT on December 10, but games against Sacred Heart, Texas Tech, and La Salle do not have dates, although the game against the Red Raiders is scheduled to take place in Lubbock, Texas while the other games are supposed to be in Carnesecca Arena.

There is no reports on if the season would be only for conference games or if it would also include non-conference battles as the Johnnies are slated to take place in the NIT Preseason Tip-Off in the Barclays Center and the Gavitt Games between November 16-19 against an opponent that has not been named yet.

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Many decision makers in the NCAA, and in respective conferences, are also talking about playing in bubbles, like the NBA, WNBA, NHL, and others have, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 throughout teams which could result in a possible shutdown of the sport.

News broke on Tuesday that the Big East Women’s Basketball Tournament would be moving to the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut starting in 2020-21 as that site has also been discussed as a host for non-conference or conference bubbles.