‘We may lose games’: SEC commissioner on basketball postponements, including Mizzou’s
Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey was at a regular season men’s basketball game Saturday for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It’s an annual tradition of his to travel for the Big 12/SEC Challenge, and Mizzou Arena was his first stop. He was headed to Knoxville, Tennessee, to watch the Vols take on Kansas later Saturday.
The conference season is right at the midway point, but that’s led to some logistical complications because of the coronavirus. And one of the main issues has been rescheduling — and how exactly the conference moves around games.
Sankey said there’s still room for the full 126-game schedule to be played out, but it’s no certainty.
“We may lose games and we have to be OK with that,” Sankey said. “Percentage based seeding in the tournament. But we may lose games. Don’t want to, but we may.”
The SEC regular season concludes on March 3, with the conference tournament set for March 10-14 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. There’s a buffer between the dates to allow rescheduling of games. It’s a similar move to the football season, when the SEC utilized the week before and during the championship game for make-up dates.
Mizzou has two games it needs to reschedule. The Tigers endured a 10-day COVID-19 pause, which led to their home games against Vanderbilt and LSU being postponed.
Also, Kentucky is on a 48-hour COVID-19 pause and had to cancel its Big 12/SEC challenge game against Texas. The Wildcats are scheduled to visit Columbia on Tuesday.
That could also lead to last-minute changes, Sankey said, similar to the football schedule. MU football was in the middle of some of those alterations. The Monday of game week, the Tigers saw their game against Arkansas changed to Vanderbilt. Mizzou also went from a road game against LSU changed to a home game because of a hurricane.
“You have to accept we may not be able to play everything,” Sankey said. “We fought this as hard as we could. We fought being just the word of the struggle in football. Eventually, 69 of 71 (football games were played). If you would’ve told us that in August, that would’ve been a victory parade moment.”