CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- The start of college basketball season offers a near-formulaic schedule for every team. Preseason favorites play each other in opening tournaments, but the bombast eventually establishes a quieter rhythm prior to the first league game of the season. Coaches shift their teams to stress different strengths, and the focus is always on improvements. Polls and bracket predictors feverishly interpret every game, but the real drive is still months from starting.
That's a normal season, but nobody expected the 2020-21 season to ever resemble previous years. No coach had a road map for traversing a season during a pandemic, and every team threw their rhythmic improvements out the window.