I've been a bit lazy getting on here as I've had some things going on but wanted to provide something of an update now that many teams have commenced practice with the arrival of October 1 just a couple of days ago. But with the environment that we're all living in right now with the COVID-19 pandemic still with a full head of steam, the teams that are currently working out are doing so in a much different fashion than what we're accustomed to in "normal" times.
For example, one coach that I correspond frequently with told me that while her squad will get going with things on October 1, the first two weeks of October are limited primarily to skill development work; in pods of 11 players or less with all the social distancing and no live play with defense which obviously limits the stuff you can do. Then (presumbably on 10-15) they can work into live practices. Another coach I know quite well won't have his team going into practice until October 19th but presumably they'll be able to avoid the limitations that the teams that started on October 1 encountered.
Of course, the big unknown back in August/September was what this upcoming season would look like. While I have not yet seen anything specific put forth by the MIAC as of yet, the presumption is that there would be few (if any) non-conference games and as far as the conference slate itself, the general thought is that there might be as many as three games a week just to be able to get as many games in as they can. The big thing that was unknown back in September was exactly what the NCAA had planned with their winter and spring championships. According to D3hoops.com, the NCAA announced on September 30 that they had put forth an interim plan that would cap the NCAA Tournament at 75% of their usual size. In this scenario anyway, instead of 64 teams making the tournament, you would now have only 48 getting and from purely a MIAC perspective, that's definitely not good considering how things have gone the last couple of seasons. Now, this proposed plan now goes to the Division III Management Council in mid-October. Should this council approve the proposal (and there's every reason to think that they would), it would then go to the President's Council for formal approval. Here's the story from D3hoops.com on this matter.... https://www.d3sports.com/notables/2020/09/smaller-brackets-planned-for-winter
Now again, as I've said before, these are not normal times and I think we just have to be patient here to see how everything is going to play out between now and the first of the year. I hope to God that things will work out so we can at least have a season but you just never know. Stay tuned....
