9/23/2020 basketball Edit

Husker Hoops looking to host own 'bubble' tournament in Lincoln

Robin Washut • InsideNebraska

Senior Writer

Robin has been with HuskerOnline since July of 2008, focusing on Nebraska football team coverage as well as being the No. 1 Husker men's basketball team and recruiting writer.

As Nebraska’s revamped 2020-21 schedule continues to fall into place, a good chunk of the non-conference slate potentially came into focus on Wednesday.

First reported by CBS Sports, the Huskers have withdrawn from the 2020 Myrtle Beach Invitational – which is now expected to be played in a bubble setting in Orlando, Fla. – and are now working on hosting their own “bubble” tournament during the first week of the season.

HuskerOnline.com confirmed the report through two sources close to the situation on Wednesday.

Nebraska is looking to host its own 16-team 'bubble' tournament in Lincoln during the first week of the 2020-21 season. (Associated Press)

While there is still plenty to figure out in terms of all the details and logistics, what is known is that Nebraska initially came up with the idea primarily because of its access to daily antigen testing for COVID-19.

The Myrtle Beach Invite, as with many other neutral site tournaments around the country, likely would not provide adequate testing capabilities, which is why Nebraska is one of several schools pulling out of such tournaments.

Nebraska’s tournament is expected to feature 16 total teams from a variety of conferences, with games being played both at Pinnacle Bank Arena and the Devaney Center.

The tournament would actually be hosted by a third-party entity, primarily for legal and liability reasons.

The hope is the tournament would begin on Nov. 25, the new official start date for college basketball set by the NCAA last week.

There is still work being done in terms of locking schools into the 16-team field, but sources said there would likely be opponents from the Big 12, SEC, Pac-12, Mountain West, Missouri Valley, Western Athletic Conference, and West Coast Conference.

Confirmation on those other teams should be coming within the next 2-4 days.

As things stand right now, this tournament would join the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, which is reportedly set to play on Dec. 8-9 on school campuses, on Nebraska’s known non-conference schedule.

The NCAA is allowing schools to play up to seven non-con games, so the rest of the schedule would be filled out with “buy” games and then the 20-game league schedule.