You may have noticed the acronym “MTE” in articles about college basketball. It stands for “multiple-team event.” We used to call them holiday tournaments. With the start of the season tipping off on November 25, college basketball teams across the nation are looking for MTEs to play in as part of their non-conference schedules. Due to COVID, athletic directors and coaches view MTEs as a way to reduce travel and play games in de facto bubbles prior to the start of conference play, but popular overseas MTEs have been cancelled and/or moved to the US, such Battle for Atlantis, Maui Invitational and Cancun Challenge, while dates/team/locations for other MTEs seem to change each day. Some schools are even quickly setting up their own MTEs.
The opening of the season was moved from November 10 to November 25 to help schools better protect their players by starting games during the winter break (most colleges begin winter break during Thanksgiving weekend this year due to COVID). Athletic directors and coaches will tell you that scheduling non-conference game is difficult in “normal” years, but never more challenging than right now. One reason it’s so difficult is that different conferences have different health protocols, some test more than others, so a team may not want to play a school with less COVID screenings. Plus, it’s difficult to schedule games with teams from other states with government officials mandating very different travel advisories and quarantines.
Athletic directors and coaches at many colleges will tell you they may not be able to finalize schedules until just before the season starts. Whatever college basketball team you root for, you can be sure its staff is in their offices right now scrambling to identify non-conference games to play from late November into December.