Who could’ve seen this coming?!

Aaaaaaand the hits keep coming.

We haven’t spent as much time on this website discussing the potential difficulties of playing a college basketball season in this COVID-19 year, but believe us, they are myriad. We’ll likely have some sort of column on that soon, so I won’t bore you with the details here.

However, if there were any evidence that the coming season may already be in some form of jeopardy, it’s this: The NCAA is already deciding to put March Madness — or whenever it’s played — in a single location to avoid travel delays from COVID.

As a result, NCAA staff are in preliminary talks with the State of Indiana and the city of Indianapolis to potentially host the 68-team tournament around the metropolitan area during the coordinated dates in March and April. Indianapolis was already slated to host the Men’s Final Four from April 3-5, 2021.

I suppose the good news here is that the NCAA if (finally!) being proactive with in its planning. The bad news, of course, is that we’re one week out from the season starting, and the Association is already having to adjust plans for the end of the season.

Regardless, it shouldn’t make any difference to us. When Mizzou hoists its first ever National Championship trophy this coming spring, we won’t care where it is.

Yesterday at Rock M

• Recruiting: A Closer Look, Part One
• Mizzou Hoops needs a healthy Mark Smith to excel in 2020-2021

More Links:

• Missouri is hanging onto the last spot in the top half of the SEC in Dave Matter’s weekly power rankings. Matter also wrote about all the changes that have taken place in SEC football since Mizzou’s last game.
• Souichi Terada at the KC Star writes that both Mizzou and South Carolina are having off-the-field issues (COVID and coaching) ahead of this Saturday’s match up. He also previewed the game.
• Saturday Down South wrote up three points of emphasis for Mizzou against South Carolina, including the fact that the Gamecocks’ defense is, “not great, Bob!”
• Sean Williams at PowerMizzou spoke with another in-state recruit from the 2022 class about his Mizzou interest. Gabe also posted his usual Monday morning thoughts. (Both stories for subscribers, y’all.)
• Another week, another SEC game cancelled due to COVID

• 2021 TE commit Ryan Hoerstkamp talked to Eric Blum at the Columbia Tribune about his commitment to Mizzou over Alabama, and had a pretty eye-opening quote about Coach Drinkwitz.
• Joshuah Bledsoe has had a memorable senior year, and he’s continuing his run by heading to the Senior Bowl.

• Drew Lock had possibly the worst game of his short NFL career on Sunday, and maybe now we know part of the reason why...

• If you’re looking to sign up for ESPN+, Rock M Nation now has an affiliate link: click Here for ESPN+ Now!
• If you’re looking to sign up for a new streaming service, you can try FuboTV: click HERE for FuboTV access — FuboTV now has ESPN, CBS, FS1 and more sports channels.
  (** RockMNation has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though RockMNation may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.**)