Can college basketball play in a bubble? Michigan State AD among those who think so

College basketball players and coaches have already lost one NCAA Tournament to the coronavirus pandemic.

In the wake of watching their football counterparts lose their season in the Big Ten and Pac-12, some in the sport – including Michigan State Athletic Director Bill Beekman – think a bubble-like format could work to help the sport play a season and a 2021 NCAA Tournament.

“We need to be creative, we need to put everything on the table and figure out how to make things work if it’s at all possible,” Beekman said on Thursday in a videoconference with reporters.

Playing basketball in a bubble format has drawn increasing attention from college sports administrators as the NBA has successfully pulled off its restart. The league hasn’t had a player test positive in more than a month as players and team personnel has remained isolated in hotels and arenas in Orlando, Florida.

As college sports leaders turn their attention to basketball, Beekman isn’t alone on his openness to a bubble concept for the sport.

In an interview with NCAA.com on Thursday, NCAA President Mark Emmert said a bubble concept is “perfectly viable in many sports,” including basketball.

“If we need to do a bubble model and that’s the only way we can do it, then we’ll figure that out,” Emmert said.

Spartans coach Tom Izzo has also indicated in multiple interviews this week that he sees bubbles as an option for the sport to play in 2020-21.

Yet the sport isn’t fully behind the idea that college athletes can compete in bubble formats.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said this week that “we cannot bubble our student-athletes”. In June, Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel said that “we will not isolate our student-athletes and put them in a hotel and keep them there.” He hasn’t weighed in on the topic in the nearly two months since.

Beekman said that while the Big Ten’s athletic directors haven’t had “significant, in-depth conversations” about basketball, he thinks a bubble concept could be feasible for the sport. Many details would have to be hashed out, including dates, locations, costs and more.

The 2020-21 college basketball season is currently scheduled to start in early November, but Beekman said it’s an “open question” when the sport is able to begin its season.

He noted the proliferation of online classes would allow players to be away from campus for extended periods of time and still complete schoolwork.

A college sports bubble may not look the same as the NBA’s bubble, which is lasting for months, Beekman said. But watching the NBA find success and other sports like Major League Baseball struggle in non-bubble formats has college basketball looking harder at the option.

“Maybe not at the level that the NBA is at, but some sort of an environment is sort of “bubble-like’ may be viable, and may be more viable at a time like this than it would have been at other times when almost all of our classes would be in person,” Beekman said.