Should the season take a pause?

[Vowelguy]

Was wondering this even before the Baylor cancellation. Keeping hearing of games being cancelled and widespread reports of high CV cases.
Clearly better days are ahead with warmer weather (eventually) and the vaccines. Should everyone take a few weeks off, hope things settle down, and then resume?

The tournament could be pushed back to April (the timeline will probably be shorter anyway with no travel required).

 

[Charliebball]

as long as the team is healthy and the majority of their opponents are healthy keep on playing!! I'm pretty confident that's how the team would vote........

 

[JellyBean]

I say just push through. Be like the NFL and keep going until the tournament.

 

[bballnut90]

I say keep playing as long as it is safe to do so and players/coaches feel comfortable. Would rather have sporadic basketball than no basketball. Teams are being regularly tested and taking necessary measures if someone does contract covid. Plus, I think almost all cases have been contracted outside of basketball.

 

[hoopsfan22]

Keep playing. Whatever games you can play, you play. Definitely better than not having any games.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Even if you shut it all down for a couple of weeks there's no guarantee that things will improve. Keep playing and try to fill in with other teams that are in the same position. But don't stop.

 

[Vowelguy]

Elaborating on my argument:

Games are now being cancelled all the time. It’s gotta be stressful for players and coaches constantly wondering if their next game is on or not. Or if today is the day they get a positive test or one of their teammates.
not to mention that the contact from travel and playing games gives more potential for the virus to spread further within these teams.

That’s why I say give them all a break. Time for things to hopefully settle down post holidays, but also time to add back more games to the season in March.

The way things are going, teams are going to be lucky to even get 15 games. Extend the season.

 

[Vowelguy]

there's no guarantee that things will improve.

Yes no guarantee but with warmer weather and the vaccine, there’s widespread agreement among experts that the spring will be much much better than the winter.

 

[CocoHusky]

Absolutely!

 

[bluedevil]

Shut it down until Easter...

 

[Zanzman]

I was for keeping it going until the Xavier game got cancelled now delay for a month or 2 and see where the country stands with the covid seems to be growing to fast right now

 

[JordyG]

So many teams have cancelled their seasons. So many have cancelled or postponed games that even if university's pushed through to the end the chance that many teams will be woefully under prepared for the NCAA's is very real. What if during the tourney a team or teams come up positive, bubble or not? I think at least the NCAA should have a May Madness or even a June Madness before they think about cancelling the season.

 

[and one]

I was for starting the season in late Feb or March and as of now would be fine with all teams going on break until then. Teams would have plenty of time to redo their schedules and get vacinated. Some games might still be cancelled but it wouldn't be worse then the current chaos and likely better.

 

[cancontent]

Does pausing throw anything out of whack when it comes to schooling? Say they push out the tournament until April/May?

 

[Vowelguy]

Does pausing throw anything out of whack when it comes to schooling? Say they push out the tournament until April/May?

Spring sports tourneys go well into May, and baseball/softball into June.
The sports schedules operate basically independently of the academic year.

 

[mbr33ct]

 

[JellyBean]

Can I revote? I was in favor of pushing through the season, like what the NFL is doing. However with Xavier postponing their match-up with us and thinking through this situation even more, I am cool with shutting things down.

I mean, we are a month removed from a Florida Gator player (men's basketball) collapsing on the court during a game. We know what happened afterwards and thankfully the young man is still with us but think big picture. He contracted the virus in August. Supposedly passed all "physical" testing and was allowed back on the court to play. So many questions about that whole "testing" process comes to mind but I will leave that to the parents of the player and the university. But we have unpaid athletes are out there risking their health and safety to play games during a pandemic, especially as Covid cases and deaths, rise across the country. So if the numbers are rising and the NCAA shut everything down in March last year, which was the right call given the nature of the problem, with similar or worse numbers, why are these players playing now and the numbers and cases are rising? So I am looking at going with shutting it down.

 

[Longtime fan]

Was wondering this even before the Baylor cancellation. Keeping hearing of games being cancelled and widespread reports of high CV cases.
Clearly better days are ahead with warmer weather (eventually) and the vaccines. Should everyone take a few weeks off, hope things settle down, and then resume?

The tournament could be pushed back to April (the timeline will probably be shorter anyway with no travel required).

It seems to be happening anyway. Baylor done. Now Xavier done.

 

[CocoHusky]

South Carolina was supposed to play Georgia today at 7. South Carolina WBB was just put on pause. Next South Carolina game is Kentucky in three days. The Georgia team is probably in Columbia SC right now trying to figure out how to get home. SC played in Alabama on Monday and Alabama is also supposed to be hosting LSU tonight.

S. Carolina halts after positive; UGA game ppd.

No. 5 South Carolina has paused team activities after a positive coronavirus test and postponed its women's basketball game with Georgia on Thursday night.

www.espn.com

 

[RockyMTblue2]

A one or two month hiatus would come and go and the same public health factors would still be in play, so play on.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

There are now five of the eleven Big East women's basketball teams that have paused all basketball activities due to Covid exposure. Governor Lamont has just announced that the much more contagious version of Covid-19 first discovered in Britain has been discovered in Connecticut. And the state's positive rate was nearly 10% yesterday.

This is out of control. It's getting worse. And the rollout of the vaccine has proven a spectacular failure.

It's time, once again, to halt the season, and for each player, coach, and administrator to try to stay alive in their own homes.

 

[my2cents]

Let the players and Coaches decide.

 

[EasyEd]

Have any schools gotten COVID from a team that they have played? I haven't heard of any. So, the protocols would then seem to be working. Most (all) of the cases of COVID where teams had to pause their activity don't seem to be caused by their basketball activities, but by other activities of life. So, it seems that they are taking adequate measures to protect the players, which is the most important consideration. However as life happens and games get cancelled, it seems they should extend the season to allow those games to be rescheduled. Most student-athletes are really competitive and I would expect that they would want to play as many games as possible, otherwise it takes away from what they will get from their college experience.

 

[CL82]

Well the players might refreshed after a pause, or so I've heard.