Basketball schedule will be quite a puzzle

Six months after the NCAA brought basketball to a sudden, screeching halt, Wednesday it gave its 350 Division I schools the green light to begin play again on Nov. 25.

If you are the University of Hawaii’s basketball teams, knowing is the easy part.

The assignment now becomes a scavenger hunt of sorts to track down and book nonconference opponents to play. That’s no simple task even in good times when you are 2,500 miles from your nearest Division I opponent. In the COVID-19 era, with the vagaries of quarantines and pre-flight testing, it is more daunting.

Not a lot of teams are willing to jump on planes and jet across multiple time zones these days and fewer still possess the financial wherewithal to do it or to underwrite guarantees for others.

The NCAA considered several possible starting dates, including Nov. 21 and some December dates, and what emerged, according to senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt, was, “A grand compromise of sorts and a unified approach that focuses on the health and safety of student-athletes competing toward the 2021 Division I basketball championships.”

The NCAA is permitting men’s teams to play a maximum of 27 games, breaking it down as 24 individual games and one multi-year tournament, or 25 solo games.

Women’s teams are allowed 23 plus a multi-team tournament or 24 individual games.

Since UH’s conference, the Big West, recently added UC San Diego and Cal State Bakersfield for the 2020-21 season, the men and women will have 20 conference games accounted for.

While UH’s 10 California-based Big West brethren can hop in a van and be within a couple of hours’ drive of a handful of prospective opponents, Hawaii’s task is considerably more challenging.

Six months of the pandemic have punched pukas in the early season schedules with some conferences having canceled nonconference games or pledged to January starts. Additionally, some tournaments are studying moving to bubble, “controlled environment” sites.la.,

That figures to cost the Rainbow Warriors their Nov. 20 marquee opponent, North Carolina, since the Tar Heels had been booked for the Maui Invitational and the tournament could be relocated by Kemper Sports to Asheville, N. C., or somewhere else on the East Coast.

Moreover, if the ESPN-owned and operated Diamond Head Classic gets moved into Orlando, Fla., that would take away three more quality games unless UH takes flight with it.

Meanwhile, the Rainbow Wahine, who traditionally play a road-heavy early nonconference schedule, need to see if they can still travel or if they can get anybody else to come here.

“Everything is up in the air,” head coach Laura Beeman said. “We had some teams penciled in and, now, we have to go back and see if we can get some of those re-done in ink.”

Filling in with local Division II teams Chaminade, Hawaii Pacific and UH-Hilo could be a possibility, but the NCAA Division II Council won’t give them their marching orders until Oct. 2.

The Rainbow Wahine have been scheduled to open Big West play Dec. 31 against UC Davis at the Stan Sheriff Center. Without some late-hour creative scheduling and some luck, Beeman said, “The good news is we could be pretty fresh when conference starts. The bad news is we may be a little rusty, too.”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.