Louisville Men’s Basketball is going to be one of the hosts of a regular season bubble during the non-conference portion of the 2020-2021 season. The Yum Center will welcome a group of teams to play in the beautiful facility as the nation continues to work through the Coronavirus pandemic. What has been unknown is the identity of the teams that will participate in the bubble. Well, we now know the identities of some of the teams courtesy of CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein.
Sources: Louisville's MTE has received commitments from Duquesne, UNC Greensboro, and Winthrop. More teams are expected to be added.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) October 7, 2020
Three teams have been added to the bubble. The most recognizable is Winthrop. They are in the NCAA Tournament quite consistently and have had one upset against Notre Dame in the first round in 2007. A-10 member Duquesne will make the trip from Pittsburgh to participate. The final team is SoCon member UNC Greensboro. They last made a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2018 and lost to perennial power Gonzaga in the first round by just 4 points.
According to Rothstein, more teams are expected to be added. It will be fun to see who else may be making the trip to Louisville. Hopefully, there will be a few power 5 teams to round out the bubble. It will be fun to see who the remaining teams will be and how this bubble will look and work. At least we do have basketball to look forward to.
UPDATE:
A new team is now confirmed for the Louisville non-con bubble.
NEW: Another commitment to the Louisville basketball bubble has arrived in Arkansas Little Rock.
— Shannon Russell (@slrussell) October 8, 2020
The Trojans went 21-10 (15-5 Sun Belt) last season and won the regular-season conference title.
That makes four teams with contracts in: Duquesne, UNCG, Winthrop and Arkansas LR.
First reported by the Courier-Journal’s Shannon Russell, Sun Belt Conference member Arkansas Little Rock has signed on to join the Bubble at the Yum Center. They are a very good mid-major that has participated in several NCAA Tournaments, including in 2016 where they upset 5th seeded Purdue before falling to Iowa State.
Stay tuned to CSZ as we will continue to update teams as they are announced.
