Should the season take a pause?

[MuchoDogYears]

I will repeat a point that Vowelguy made a few posts back....


This thread is about the NCAA declaring a pause. In fact it's a poll. I thought it might be a thread relating to Covid that might survive here but it is twisting into arguments about the relative benefits of various Covid abatement techniques and is likely going to quickly go over the edge.

I'm sorry we have so little actual game action to discuss but please steer clear of going down the Covid drain.

Your response is just bizarre. Isn’t the NCAA pause poll due to COVID or am I missing something?

 

[Biff]

Thanks for your thoughts.

The issue of course is Covid. But, maybe you haven't been around much. Covid discussions more often than not begin to drift into arguments that become political and/or personal. Many threads have been deleted and will be deleted if the discussion wavers into those areas.

In an attempt to not have this thread deleted or locked I was/am just reminding people to stay "on topic". Overall it's easier to drift away from WCBB when no games are being played.

 

[CL82]

My creative writing professor would accuse you of creating one straw man to prop up another. Why not cancel the games and keep the players in their cocoons instead of sending them home? AKA exactly what Duke WBB is doing.

Because that’s the worst of all possible worlds?

 

[CocoHusky]

Because that’s the worst of all possible worlds?

How so?

 

[DocStressor]

Postponing the season would only make sense if the rate of COVID-19 cases was substantially lower at whatever time play was resumed. I would think that March would probably be the latest that a conference could open back up. Given the characteristics of a typical epidemic, we might only expect a decline from 250,000 to 100,000 new cases per day by then.

We are currently seeing a surge that began when the weather cooled down in October. The rate of increase was accelerated by the Thanksgiving-NewYears holidays. New cases seem to be leveling out or starting a decline about now. As you can see from the case pattern, each wave approximates a bell-shaped normal distribution. The decline of the first 2 waves is generally accounted for by changes in the weather and better human behavior. The current wave will be mitigated by the beginning of vaccinations, an increase in the percentage of the population that has already been infected and are now resistant, and warmer weather. However, the introduction of new strains that are more infectious, will slow the decline.

Since college-age kids will not be vaccinated in any number until late spring, I don't know if postponing the season would work.

 

[CL82]

How so?

It restricts the liberties of the student athletes without giving them the opportunity to play.

Being in a bubble is tough. As the Seton Hall coach noted it often means that students are spending the vast majority of their time isolated in their rooms. That is a huge personal sacrifice that takes a toll on the players. They do it so that they can have the opportunity to play the game that they have committed themselves to. Having them sacrifice their personal freedom and without giving them opportunity to play seems unreasonable. These are people, not specimens to be preserved in a hermetically sealed jar.

JMO

 

[CocoHusky]

It restricts the liberties of the student athletes without giving them the opportunity to play.

Being in a bubble is tough. As the Seton Hall coach noted it often means that students are spending the vast majority of their time isolated in their rooms. That is a huge personal sacrifice that takes a toll on the players. They do it so that they can have the opportunity to play the game that they have committed themselves to. Having them sacrifice their personal freedom and without giving them opportunity to play seems unreasonable. These are people, not specimens to be preserved in a hermetically sealed jar.

JMO

I was in agreement with you until the dramatic parts about unreasonable and specimens. That games are being canceled and or postponed is neither unreasonable nor part of an experiment using these players. Some responsible adults are making decision to cancel games based on COVID testing primarily and contact tracing as a secondary & equal consideration. The civil liberties of the SA should not be a consideration here because each player had an option to opt out of playing this season without loss of scholarship. There are certainly restrictions once you decide to opt in but those restrictions are the same for everyone who decides to opt in. I voted to cancel the games because what you describe as an "experiment" and others have described as a "cocoon/bubbles" is clearly not working. It is not working because for games to continue eventually players have to come out of their respective cocoons and play other teams. Clearly cocoons, protocols and testing are not being administered equally across NCAA institutions. For example some schools are testing every day while others are testing a couple times per week. This (unequal testing & mandatory quarantine time) was the basis of Duke deciding to shut down. UCONN game tonight was postponed because UCONN played Providence on Saturday and Providence is shut down. Villanova game on Saturday postponed because Nova in shut down. My prior post which both you and @Alydar have perhaps misinterpreted is a statement about what to do after the decision to shut down. To be clear, I am not in favor of sending the players home after the season is shut down. I'm in favor of what Duke is doing which is staying in their cocoons, going to classes and continuing to practice basketball.

 

[CL82]

I was in agreement with you until the dramatic parts about unreasonable and specimens. That games are being canceled and or postponed is neither unreasonable nor part of an experiment using these players. Some responsible adults are making decision to cancel games based on COVID testing primarily and contact tracing as a secondary & equal consideration. The civil liberties of the SA should not be a consideration here because each player had an option to opt out of playing this season without loss of scholarship. There are certainly restrictions once you decide to opt in but those restrictions are the same for everyone who decides to opt in. I voted to cancel the games because what you describe as an "experiment" and others have described as a "cocoon/bubbles" is clearly not working. It is not working because for games to continue eventually players have to come out of their respective cocoons and play other teams. Clearly cocoons, protocols and testing are not being administered equally across NCAA institutions. For example some schools are testing every day while others are testing a couple times per week. This (unequal testing & mandatory quarantine time) was the basis of Duke deciding to shut down. UCONN game tonight was postponed because UCONN played Providence on Saturday and Providence is shut down. Villanova game on Saturday postponed because Nova in shut down. My prior post which both you and @Alydar have perhaps misinterpreted is a statement about what to do after the decision to shut down. To be clear, I am not in favor of sending the players home after the season is shut down. I'm in favor of what Duke is doing which is staying in their cocoons, going to classes and continuing to practice basketball.

Agree to disagree Coco.