EUGENE – Oregon and South Carolina may still face each other in 2020-21, but it won’t be at the Matthew Knight Arena.
The Gamecocks and Ducks, who finished last season at No. 1 and No. 2 in the polls, respectively, agreed in principle to open the next season against each other, although Oregon did not have the star power of last year’s team.
But the series at home and at home is on hold due to the uncertainty of fan participation in indoor sports stemming from COVID-19.
“We were going to start the season against South Carolina right here in Eugene and ESPN would probably take that,” said Oregon coach Kelly Graves at The James Crepea Show at KORE 1050 Fox Sports Eugene. “At the moment, ESPN can’t schedule anything because it doesn’t know what the crash will be like. We can have college football five nights a week in early November; so they were not able to do that. Also, we have the two biggest fan bases in the country and I just thought it wasn’t fair to our fans that they probably couldn’t be there and certainly not in the number that we would expect. I think we’ll postpone this for a year. “
Oregon agreed to play at Battle 4 Atlantis from November 21-23, according to a contract purchased by The Oregonian / OregonLive via public records application.
Graves said South Carolina, Oklahoma and Marquette are among the other teams at the event.
The Ducks are also scheduled to play Baylor as part of the four Pac-12 Coast-to-Coast Challenge games at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on December 19. Oregon men are scheduled to take on Baylor at that event as well.
Oregon was also hired to host Long Beach State in the second half of a series at home and at home, and Graves said Princeton is visiting Eugene this season as well.
Two other non-conference games were hired, but they fell in this off-season, as other conferences and schools cut games and travel due to the financial constraints of the pandemic, according to Graves, although two local teams are scheduled.
“The schedule is still a work in progress,” he said. “We are going to play Portland and Portland State this year; one at home and one on the road. I want to continue like this, so that we always play a game in Portland, which I think is important for our fans in Portland. These are good programs, Portland I think it would have come to our place (in) the first round of the NCAA tournament this year. “