Friday matchups

Here is Nick Daschel's article that you are referring to:

 At what point does Oregon State basketball say, we fought the good fight, but basketball is finished for the 2020-21 season?



In short, not yet.



OSU athletic director Scott Barnes said Thursday the athletes will drive that decision, if it ever comes to that. It wouldn’t be an unprecedented move. The Duke women’s team ended its 2020-21 season after four games due to COVID-19. The Ivy League canceled all winter sports, including basketball. “If there’s ever a point where (playing) is not something that they want to do, then we’ll certainly listen to that,” Barnes said.









Barnes is regularly in communication with coaches and player leaders. He said there is a student-athlete advisory meeting next Monday, and “we’ll be taking the temperature and seeing how they’re feeling.”



There are financial implications to canceling a basketball season, particularly for the men.



Teams must play at least 15 games to qualify for a slice of the Pac-12′s NCAA tournament revenue. To date, the Oregon State men have played nine games, the women six.



Pac-12 men share regular-season television revenue, based on the number of games each team plays. If Oregon State has to cancel some games or the rest of its season, its share of the regular-season television revenue pool would shrink based on the number of games the Beavers played.



There is virtually no regular-season television revenue in women’s basketball. They play most games on the Pac-12 Network for exposure.



As for making up all OSU games that are postponed, Barnes said that’s more likely for the men than women because of scheduling flexibility. The men have fewer conference games — 20 vs. 22 — and an additional week of the season.



Oregon State already has had five Pac-12 women’s games postponed, against Washington, UCLA, USC, California and Stanford. Barnes said he doesn’t foresee the Beavers successfully rescheduling all five games, but perhaps one or two. It’s also possible more postponements are on the horizon. Barnes said when the Pac-12 developed a 22-game women’s conference schedule, it was done with the thought that COVID-19 situations would cancel some games.



The men have three postponed games in USC, Utah and Colorado. Barnes believes there’s a good chance of rescheduling those games, but again, more postponements are possible.





Basketball is proving to be tougher to pull off than football on the COVID-19 front. It’s an indoor sport where the virus can linger. Plus, basketball’s roster size, which is 15 vs. football -- with more than 100 players -- allows for less flexibility.



“As we’ve learned, one positive based on contact tracing can put the whole team out,” Barnes said. “It certainly is more challenging.”

And the rest of the PAC-11 will play on. So would this affect future recruiting even.... who knows. And if March madness in a bubble is played as planned isn’t there some experience gained just experiencing that? Especially for the younger players. Decisions made now could have implications for years to come to get back to where they were at. If a player is down to a handful of schools and one of the teams is not on tv or even playing who has the better edge? Someone asked earlier on how the more populated areas and schools are doing it and that is a great question yet in a small town we can’t do as well? Ask Barnes about that.

You consistently talk about how cancelling would affect recruiting/transfers. What is the correlation you see between those two?

Duke, for instance, landed a highly coveted recruit and McDonald’s All-American transfer since shutting down.

Stanford always place solid defense. And I will always place my bet on a great defensive team advancing further in a tournament vs a great offensive team. I had thought that Arkansas would have enough offensive power to overcome solid defensive teams this year, but, Arkansas is struggling against teams with better defenses. One of the reasons I enjoy OSU WBB is Scott Rueck's focus on defense.