There’s now a press release saying that the tournament that was originally supposed to have been at the Atlantis resort but was then rumored to be heading to South Dakota has been officially cancelled. The report that it hadn’t really been cancelled was wrong.
People are really confusing things. The Battle 4 Atlantis tournament and its organizers/sponsors are not holding the event (i.e. "canceled.") However, there is an effort to have the exact same field and same structure in a tournament in SD, yet to have an official name. Reportedly, Duke is the only team that isn't on board with the idea. QED
#allsubjecttochange
Duke could probably schedule its own 4 game tournament in NYC and get a good field with a couple phone calls. The Atlantis field is better than what we could schedule on our own.
I don't know what the concern is. Is Coach K or the administration concerned about COVID-19 for himself, staff, or players? Does Coach K want to avoid the 3 team tournament because it takes up too many away/neutral spots? (He mentioned rethinking the trip to Maui in a presser last time. We only had 18 ACC games when this contract was signed instead of 20.)
Who is going to back renting out the venue to play it in? There won't be fans there, so the only revenue is going to be from TV, and honestly that isn't likely to pay much, even with Duke playing. If they want anything to happen, hosting in Cameron makes more sense, just from financial reasons alone.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
TV? I am skeptical that you are going to get decent non-conference opponents by holding the games at Duke. Kansas tried this a couple times long before COVID-19. They had to play a home-home with Arizona to get a quality opponent and had the rest with other smaller schools that did not help NET rankings. Noting that I have not seen schedules, the best case scenario might be Gardner-Webb, VCU, and Georgetown with a return to Georgetown in a future year.
A full round-robin for the Champions Classic would be enough for the NET rankings on a 27 game schedule when you have 18-20 ACC games.
Pure speculation/fantasy here, but I'm wondering if the teams would ever consider turning the Champions Classic into a three-game MTE? The teams could bubble for a week and then play round robin over five days. It would be brutal to have to play three games against elite opponents that early in the season, but a ton of fun for us as fans!
Also, the title of this thread did not indicate that it was a Duke-only discussion, so I will also pass along that the Maui Invitational is being moved to Asheville, NC. Quite a home court advantage the CHeats will have. Also, Louisville and Kentucky have announced they are planning to host small MTE tournaments on their home courts. I think there's a high likelihood that Duke and many other top programs do the same. It allows them to get 2-3 games in against opponents of their choosing on their home floor, in a bubbled format.
Coach Calipari floated this idea in August. I’ve seen no idea the idea was getting support from the other participants.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
It’s not just Duke. Louisville is planning a bubble at their place.
I understand many DBRers dislike of Seth Greenberg and Dan Dakich but their most recent podcast includes updates from Andy Katz and one of ESPN's head of college basketball operations on how these multi team events are taking shape, the various considerations, etc. I found it had a lot of useful information:
http://www.espn.com/espnradio/newyor...e/_/id/2689788
It's the 9/17/20 episode.
Jeff Goodman is tweeting that Howard, with Makur Maker, will be at Duke for an event on 12/4-5.
I guess I was expecting something more than a two day event.
Luke Decock at the N&O has an interesting piece on scheduling at Duke and other local schools. It confirms what we had already been hearing. It does add that the ACC schedule may not be completed until October, although it doesn't say when in October. I'm guessing it won't be early October. Decock does mention that Jon Jackson is the guy at Duke in charge of basketball scheduling. I don't recall hearing his name before. I wish him luck this season!
There have been a couple of scheduling updates lately that I haven't seen added to the discourse here:
Champions Classic is anticipated for December 1 (Duke/msu, UK/KU)--Source numerous Duke & CBB journos
ACC/B1G Challenge is anticipated for December 8-9--Source Jon Rothstein
Obviously things are subject to change, which is why I say 'anticipated,' but I appreciate some tangible dates to look forward to.