COVID-19, Game Cancellations, and the NCAA Tournament

[Jet915]

There is no universal policy. Goodman is saying about 40% arent testing post Xmas break unless symptomatic while 60% are testing the whole team whether they have symptoms or not....

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

.

Anyway, things are a mess right now and I don't expect this to improve within the next month. Looks like it'll be the third straight year impacted greatly by COVID.

This might not be going away for years, if ever. NCAA and leagues need to prepare how best to play through this the way the professional leagues have.

Most unfortunately, things are going to get much worse before they start getting better. The NCAA Tournament is now at risk at being cancelled again.

Between Christmas and New Year's, doctors expect the US Omicron surge to grow - Holly Yan and Aya Elamroussi, CNN - December 27, 2021

Covid-19 numbers keep soaring as Christmastime travelers scatter back across country and Americans prepare for another holiday weekend. The US is now averaging 198,404 new Covid-19 cases each day, according to Sunday data from Johns Hopkins University. That's is 47% higher than a week ago and the highest such number since January 19.

"I think we're going to see half a million cases a day -- easy -- sometime over the next week to 10 days," CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Sunday. About 71,000 Americans were hospitalized with Covid-19 as of Sunday, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. And an average of 1,408 Americans died from Covid-19 each day during the week ending Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins. That's a 17% increase from the prior week. With the highly contagious Omicron variant, "We're certainly going to continue to see a surge (in cases) for a while," Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Monday.

Looking ahead to New Year's Eve on Friday, small gatherings of fully vaccinated people will be safe, Fauci said. But he advised people to avoid large parties where they don't know the vaccination status of all guests. "When you are talking about a New Year's Eve party where you have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating, you do not know the status of the vaccination, I would recommend strongly: Stay away from that this year," said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "There will be other years to do that. But not this year."

New York state broke a single-day record for new Covid-19 cases, with 49,708 new Covid-19 cases reported on Christmas Eve, according to data released on Sunday by Gov. Kathy Hochul's office. "As we come home from holiday gatherings, it is as important as ever to take precautions to limit the spread of COVID-19 this season," Hochul said in a statement. "The vaccine is the best tool we have to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe as we head into the new year." The average number of daily new Covid-19 cases in New York City skyrocketed 644% in the past two weeks to 19,268, according to The New York Times.

United States Coronavirus Cases – Worldometers – updated continuously

COVID-19 Forecasts: Cases - CDC.gov/coronavirus – updated daily

Division I Men's Basketball homepage – NCAA.com

COVID-19 Coronavirus homepage – NCAA.org

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[Omaha1]

CDC just reduced isolation for positive cases to 5 days. ACC has already changed their rules to match.

[gtmoBlue]

We have reached a unanimous (3 PERSON) consensus over at BJU:

Ever since UConn rejoined the league, the Big East has not played a balanced schedule. I think the evidence is clear: this is all Connecticut's fault. We all were doing just fine until they came along. Now everything's going to hell.

So, with all these games getting pulled off the schedule, what am I supposed to watch now? The Fenway Bowl? (Actually, that got cancelled too). Covid keeps up this crap, it's gonna push me too far and I might start to get mad. Maybe a sliver lining though: at this rate, we may be able to get an extra year for Hawkins, O'Connell and Feazell. Along with every 6th and 7th year senior in the country.

Agreed blame it on Uconn, I might be eligible if this crap keeps on going,

What the hell...I cast the 3rd vote. It's Hurley's fault!


The Best way to play this out? Back to the Bubbles folks!

[Jet915]

Big East needs to be proactive and start scheduling games between teams that are available even if they were scheduled down the road or else we'll never play again....

[MUPanther]

Multiple football bowl games have now been canceled too.

That is also a case of the transfer portal as well.

[stever20]

Wonder if this is how things are going to be moving...
Calipari says that now that his team is 100% vaccine boosted, they are only testing players if they are symptomatic

[Omaha1]

Wonder if this is how things are going to be moving...
Calipari says that now that his team is 100% vaccine boosted, they are only testing players if they are symptomatic

Creighton is fully boosted now too. Which is great except that our goddamn opponents aren’t and so we can’t play.

[Novachap]

Wonder if this is how things are going to be moving...
Calipari says that now that his team is 100% vaccine boosted, they are only testing players if they are symptomatic

Creighton is fully boosted now too. Which is great except that our goddamn opponents aren’t and so we can’t play.

Temple / Nova is now canceled. Issues on Temple side... should move our game up imo, but that won't happen.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

.

BIG EAST Announces Change to Basketball Game Cancellation Policy - BigEast.com - December 23, 2021

NEW YORK – The BIG EAST Conference today announced a modification to its game cancellation policy for men’s and women’s basketball for the 2021-22 season. The adjustment was the result of the recent sudden and significant increases in the number of COVID-19 cases nationally and within BIG EAST programs due to the spread of the Omicron variant.

Under the modified policy, a Conference game will be canceled in the event a school has fewer than seven scholarship players and one countable coach available for a game. The BIG EAST Conference Office will attempt to reschedule any such game(s) in accordance with parameters approved by BIG EAST Directors of Athletics. In the event the rescheduling parameters cannot be fulfilled, the canceled game(s) will be designated as a no contest.

The forfeiture classification will be removed from these games, and efforts are now underway to reschedule them at a later date.

Big Ten adjusts COVID-related forfeiture policy for basketball - Adam Rittenberg, ESPN – December 28, 2021

Big Ten basketball games impacted by COVID-19 cases will no longer be considered automatic forfeits, the league announced Tuesday.

The adjusted forfeiture policy for all remaining 2021-22 Big Ten contests allows the league to review every impacted game and determine whether it can be rescheduled, declared a no-contest or declared a forfeit.

The Big Ten will consider number of available athletes and coaches when determining what happens to games affected by COVID. Men's and women's basketball teams typically must have at least seven scholarship athletes and at least one coach available to play games, but Big Ten teams can play with lower numbers if approved by medical personnel.

Big Ten teams that have enough players and coaches still might choose not to compete, but would need to demonstrate compelling reasons to the league and its chief medical officer, Dr. James Borchers. "A team that does not compete, and is unable to demonstrate why it is unsafe to compete, will be assessed a forfeiture," the Big Ten stated in a news release. The Big Ten was the last of the seven major basketball conferences to amend its forfeiture policy.

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College basketball hit hard by COVID-19 cancellations: Duke, Illinois, UConn join long list of paused teams - Matt Norlander - December 28, 2021

The latest look at men's D-I teams on COVID pauses across the country. We are now at 80-plus schools affected.

LIVE UPDATES: US and European countries report another day of record-breaking Covid-19 cases - Rhea Mogul, Adam Renton, Tara John, and Ed Upright, CNN – Wednesday, December 29, 2021

The United States and a number of European countries smashed their Covid-19 case records Tuesday as the highly-transmissible Omicron variant spreads across the world.

The US: The nation reached a seven-day average of 254,496 new cases on Tuesday -- the highest this number has ever been over the course of the pandemic -- according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The figure beat the previous record of 251,989 new infections, set on January 11, 2021. Hospitalizations and deaths have not seen a similar increase in pace but these are lagging indicators that may drag weeks behind case increases.

As each day passes, my hopes for the 2021-22 college basketball season continue to diminish, as it appears increasingly likely that this season will end up being ‘more incomplete’ than either the 2019-20 season or the 2020-21 season. The various conferences’ Cancellation/Forfeit Rules will become far less important after the conferences announce the cancellations of their conference tournaments in March, and the 2022 NCAA Tournament is cancelled due to the unavailability of numerous NET Top 50 teams on Selection Sunday.

I’m really hoping that I am wrong with my pessimistic predictions, but we’ll just have to wait and see, as the numbers keep going up and up and up.
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