SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey paid a visit to his first in-person basketball game this season when he traveled to Missouri for its men’s basketball game against TCU on Saturday as part of the “SEC-Big 12 Showdown.”

Sankey gave his latest update at a press conference about how the conference’s basketball teams have handled the COVID-19 pandemic, and a path forward. He called the football response and everything up to this point remarkable, and noted that the SEC played 69 of 71 football games.

“We’ve had a healthy dialogue with our athletic directors about the focus on playing the season as-scheduled,” Sankey said, per KOMU, when asked about how the men’s and women’s basketball campaigns have played out during COVID. “That will continue to be our focus, particularly around the health of our participants.”

Sankey said the SEC will work to reschedule as many basketball games as possible.

“We may lose games and we’ve got to be okay with that,” Sankey said. “We don’t want to, but we may.”

Financially, Sankey said there has been a lot of dialogue with university administrators about changes to make in terms of revenue distribution and fan attendance.

“There’s no place I’d rather be in this circumstance than the Southeastern Conference,” said Sankey. “We’re working to maximize our revenue distribution from our conference out. But you can see and look at what I’m sure would have been a full arena in a normal environment here today when we’re probably at close to 25 percent.”

Changes may still come, and Sankey said there will likely be issues to address moving forward.

“We’ve talked continually with athletic directors and even presidents and chancellors about the impact,” continued Sankey. “How do we adjust our practices? How do we maximize revenue distribution in this environment? We also have listened and shared information about how people are adjusting, whether it’s not filling positions or reducing travel.”

“We are going to have reductions across the board from a revenue standpoint that will prompt decision-making within each department,” said Sankey. “I’m sure there will be carry-over but I’m confident our programs will be able to adjust well, even if it takes some time for those adjustments to recover.”