The 2020–21 NCAA Division I males’s basketball season started on November 25, 2020 and concluded on March 14, 2021. The 2021 NCAA Division I Males’s Basketball Event culminated the season and commenced on March 18 and concluded on April 5, 2021.
The season was initially slated to start on November 10, 2020, however was delayed because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which prematurely ended the earlier season.
Contents
Season headlines[edit]
Convention membership adjustments[edit]
Ten colleges joined a brand new convention for the 2020–21 season with 4 colleges leaving Division II for Division I.
Arenas[edit] – “when does ncaa basketball start”
New arenas[edit]
Arenas of latest D-I groups[edit]
Three of the 4 new D-I members for this season are utilizing current on-campus services:
The opposite D-I newcomer, Bellarmine, introduced a multi-year take care of the Kentucky State Honest Board on November 2, 2020 to play house video games at Freedom Corridor, situated on the Kentucky Exposition Heart close to Louisville Muhammad Ali Worldwide Airport. The sector had been house to Louisville for greater than 50 years earlier than that group moved to the downtown KFC Yum! Heart in 2010. Resulting from COVID-19 restrictions, Bellarmine may solely seat 300 at its on-campus facility, Knights Corridor. With Freedom Corridor’s basketball capability of 18,252, the Knights have been capable of seat 2,700.[34]
Arenas closing[edit]
Momentary arenas[edit]
Season outlook[edit]
Pre-season polls[edit]
The highest 25 from the AP and USA Right now Coaches Polls.
Common season[edit]
Early season tournaments[edit]
The Battle 4 Atlantis match in Nassau, Bahamas was cancelled attributable to logistical points related to COVID-19. A brand new match often called the Crossover Basic is scheduled to be held on the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and had invited virtually the entire groups that had initially deliberate to compete within the Battle 4 Atlantis match (though 5 groups would later drop out).[38][39]
On October 26, 2020, ESPN Occasions cancelled 10 early-season tournaments that it organizes. It had deliberate to carry them on the ESPN Huge World of Sports activities Advanced in Orlando inside a protected “bubble” (the identical website had just lately hosted the rest of the 2019–20 NBA season below related circumstances), however The Athletic reported that there had been disagreements over well being and COVID-19 testing protocols that had been mandated by ESPN Occasions (in accordance with suggestions by the CDC), which have been stricter than these being adopted by conferences.[40][41]
Upsets[edit]
Groups listed in daring kind gained “true road games”, outlined as video games held at an opponent’s common house courtroom (together with usually used alternate houses).
Along with the above listed upsets through which an unranked group defeated a ranked group, there have been ten non-Division I groups to defeat a Division I group thus far this season:
Convention winners and tournaments[edit]
Every of the 31 Division I athletic conferences that performed in 2020–21 ended its common season with a single-elimination match. The group with the very best regular-season document in every convention was given the primary seed in every match, with tiebreakers used as wanted within the case of ties for the highest seeding. The winners of those tournaments obtained automated invites to the 2021 NCAA Division I Males’s Basketball Event.
Statistical leaders[edit]
Postseason[edit]
NCAA Event[edit]
Event upsets[edit]
For this record, an “upset” is outlined as a win by a group seeded 7 or extra spots under its defeated opponent. That is extra restrictive than the NCAA’s official definition, through which a distinction of 5 seed strains is adequate to declare an “upset”.[78]
Groups eradicated from postseason participation attributable to COVID-19[edit]