Ohio State signed up to take a trip to the Bahamas and will instead end up in South Dakota.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Battle 4 Atlantis – an eight-team early-season tournament – will move from the Bahamas to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein reported on Monday afternoon. The games will be played in Sanford Pentagon, which houses a G League team called the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
The field, which was announced earlier this year, includes Duke, West Virginia, Memphis, Texas A&M, Utah, Creighton, and Wichita State to go along with the Chris Holtmann-led Buckeyes. A limited number of fans will be able to attend the games, per Rothstein.
Sources: The 2020 Battle 4 Atlantis will be played at the Sanford Pentagon in South Dakota. Dates are TBD.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) September 14, 2020
Field includes Duke, West Virginia, Memphis, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Utah, Creighton, and Wichita State.
Neither the matchups nor dates of the tournament have been announced. Those will be made public at a later date.
Ohio State plans to play in an early-season tournament each season going forward.
“I do like them, and I think here it's also not a bad thing because football here in the fall, it controls a lot of things,” Holtmann said last fall. “So it's not a bad idea to take your team away for four, five days or a week and play neutral games in settings like that.”
In the next couple of years, the Buckeyes are slated to play in the Maui Invitational, which will be held in Lahaina, Hawaii – unless, apparently, a pandemic forces it to the Dakotas.
