K-State basketball scrambling for new games after Cayman Islands Classic cancellation
College basketball season is less than two months away, but Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor isn’t sure when the Wildcats men will be ready to announce their schedule.
For now, he can only promise two things:
1. K-State will play a pair of conference games in December, along with every other Big 12 team, in order to help spread out the league’s double round-robin slate.
2. The Wildcats are no longer playing in the Cayman Islands Classic along with La Salle, Miami, Mississippi, Miami, Nevada, Northern Iowa, Oregon State and Western Kentucky.
Participating in that November tournament felt like a long shot after the coronavirus pandemic began. Tournament organizers tried to salvage the event by moving its location from the Cayman Islands to Florida with a start date of Nov. 23, but now it has been canceled with the 2020-21 season set to begin on Nov. 25.
Finding replacement games is a new challenge for K-State basketball coach Bruce Weber.
“We lost our tournament, so Bruce and his staff are trying to make up for those lost nonconference games,” Taylor said. “We are still working through what that is going to look like. We are going to be testing three days a week and the day before every game. Nonconference teams have to follow our protocols. As we talk to our opponents about possibly playing us, they need to understand that.”
It’s also possible that the Wildcats can find a new tournament to participate in shortly after the season begins.
Many tournaments are reportedly looking into moving their games to Orlando or other locations, but some teams have decided to back out of those events. The Maui Invitational is reportedly being moved to Asheville, North Carolina. The Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament will reportedly be played in South Dakota.
Taylor said event organizers are also working to create new tournaments just for this season that could become an option for the Wildcats.
“People are creating these things left and right without teams right now,” Taylor said. “It is interesting. Right now, Bruce is trying to find a way to make up for those games or maybe get into another tournament. Everyone is scrambling to find teams. It may be a while before we get our schedule done.”
Under new NCAA regulations, K-State can play a maximum of 24 games this season, plus an early season tournament. Or 25 games without a tournament.
The Wildcats previously had games in place after Nov. 25 with UMKC, UNLV, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Nebraska (at Sprint Center) and South Dakota. They were also set to play Butler in the Big 12/Big East conference challenge and a to-be-determined team in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
Taylor said K-State would work to honor at least some of those agreements, but there is no telling what the final schedule will look like or when it will be completed.