FARMINGTON, Utah – The Big Sky’s women’s and men’s basketball teams will compete in a 16-game conference schedule during the 2020-21 season, the conference office announced Friday.

The conference’s presidents’ council approved this modification that was recommended by the league’s conference council, comprised of the member schools’ faculty athletics representatives, athletic directors and senior woman administrators.

“This one-year adjustment to our conference basketball schedules is an appropriate measure that delivers significant cost savings to our member institutions while providing our basketball programs with more flexibility in their nonconference scheduling,” Big Sky Commissioner Tom Wistrcill said in a conference release.

All 11 teams from each gender again will advance to the Big Sky Conference Tournament at CenturyLink Arena in Boise.

The tournament will run from March 8-13, 2021.

The Eastern Washington men won the regular-season title last season, while the Idaho women finished second to Montana State.

The composite 2020-21 Big Sky basketball schedules, which will tip off on or after New Year’s Eve, will be released at a later date. Geographic proximity will be one of the criteria to determine which six opponents each school plays twice and which four opponents each school plays once.

The previously approved 2020-21 conference schedule was a 20-game double-round-robin slate that began with two games in early December and resumed after Christmas. Each institution can determine whether it will replace the four fewer conference games in 2020-21 with nonconference matchups.