DETROIT _ In the world of college basketball, being on the bubble is usually a precarious position.
In late February or early March _ maybe even late January these days _ most teams start wondering where they stand when it comes to the NCAA Tournament. Some teams are already locks to get in the Big Dance while others never really had a shot.
For those that see their season going either way _ a few more wins clinches it or a few losses leads to a disappointing postseason and trip to the NIT, or worse, no more games _ life is lived on the bubble. Postseason hopes are left to the whim of a 10-person committee that puts together a 68-team field.
Well, these are hardly ordinary times. College football in a handful of conferences _ the Big Ten and Pac-12 included _ has been postponed in the fall because of the COVID-19 pandemic and there is no clear vision of what college basketball might look like.
For a season that is supposed to start in early November and span through the end of March, there's at least some optimism. And that optimism lies with an idea gaining steam _ playing in a bubble.
So, no longer is being on the bubble bad. In college hoops, at least for this season, a bubble might be the only place that can save a season.
"I think the bubble thing is possible," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo told The Detroit News. "There's a million ways we can do it."
Simple, however, it will not be. There might not be a million ways, but Izzo is right, there are options. There are also plenty of obstacles for college student-athletes playing in that sort of environment, but getting a season in will be critical, and that means doing everything possible to make it happen.
The NCAA said this week it's working toward making a decision about the upcoming season by the middle of September. By then, they say, they'll know whether the season can begin, how might it look and whether there needs to be a delay.
However it looks, it likely won't be status quo.
"We need to be creative," Michigan State athletic director Bill Beekman said. "We need to put everything on the table and figure out how to make things work, if it's at all possible. I fully support that perspective and we're working on it. But yeah, I think that some sort of _ maybe not at the level that the NBA is at _ but some sort of an environment that is more bubble-like may be viable and may be more viable at a time like this than it would have been at other times when almost all of our classes were in person."
