The college basketball season marches on notwithstanding rashes of cancelled/postponed games even at the start of the season. It is almost as if the folks in charge believe that if they ignore the very existence of the coronavirus, it will simply dematerialize, and the scourge will be lifted. Would that it were so…
Back when the folks in charge were trying to figure out how and when to have a college basketball season, one of the ideas on the table was to limit the amount of traveling that teams would need to do. After all, sitting on an airplane or in a train car with a random sample of the public who may or may not have an infected person among them for several hours was not a model for “containing the spread”. And so, one of the annual early season “tournaments” held in the Bahamas was relocated to Sioux Falls, SD. At the time of that action a couple of months ago, the coronavirus had not expressed itself significantly in the mid-west; that decision was well-intentioned and made sense at the time.
However, the coronavirus did make its way to the mid-west and recent public health statistics would probably call South Dakota a viral “hot spot” now. Brad Dickson resides in Omaha; here is his view on travel to South Dakota in early December:
“I laugh whenever the ‘Visit Sioux Falls’ commercial comes on TV. Nobody in their right mind would vacation in South Dakota right now. It’s safer in the Middle East and inside most active volcanoes.”
In one sense, the college basketball planners did a good thing; they analyzed the situation as it was in an objective manner and then tried to adapt their needs for a basketball season to the “openings” that the virus seemed to provide. On the other hand, the college basketball planners suffered from a case of hubris in thinking that they could outflank the viral spread.
I suspect that the success of the NBA and the NHL at the time gave the college basketball planners a sense of confidence that they might replicate those situations. What the NBA and the NHL experiences actually showed, however, is that the coronavirus can be “controlled” in a limited footprint if three essential elements are in place:
- Everyone who enters “the bubble” at the outset goes into strict and monitored quarantine with frequent testing. Ergo “the bubble” begins with a “clean population”.
- Any new entrants to “the bubble” need to be tested to a standard that will give confidence to the proposition that the new entrant is not bringing the virus in with him/her. Similarly, all necessary contacts with the “outside world” – such as food delivery folks – must be closely monitored.
- There needs to be frequent and robust testing and re-testing of “the bubble population” with added contact tracing in the event of viral detection.
Nothing in the above is difficult in the sense that nothing in the above requires an invention or a scientific breakthrough. At the same time, everything above requires diligence and money. In the case of the NBA and the NHL, the leagues and the players’ unions provided the impetus for diligence and the money for implementation was available. For college basketball, there is not “overseer” to provide the diligence and far too many of the 357 Division 1 college basketball participants do not have the money to try to make a “bubble” happen.
Absent a “bubble”, college basketball players are out and about on campus – and maybe even off-campus occasionally. Chronologically and legally, they are adults; let me assert here that less than a majority of them have achieved a state of “wisdom” or even a state of “normal common sense” when it comes to thinking about the consequences of their behaviors. Deferred gratification does not run rampant throughout the student bodies of US colleges and universities.
Why is the lack of appreciation for deferred gratification a problem? Well, that is the “environment” in which college football players exist and look at the COVID-19 havoc that is rampant there. The cost of establishing and maintaining an NBA-like “bubble” for a football team is beyond consideration; so, football teams have to put their players out there “on the economy” so to speak. College football should provide a model for the ineffectiveness of the “on the economy” model when it comes to viral containment.
College basketball is practiced and played indoors – albeit in large indoor settings. Nevertheless, logic, research and scholarly study have all pointed to the fact that coronavirus spreads more readily indoors than it does outdoors. The situation now is that we have new data that indicate that college basketball in early December 2020 is not such a great idea.
College basketball in a normal November or December is just a menu dominated by glorified practices and scrimmages for most teams. Do fans really look forward to a matchup between Kentucky and Quinnipiac or Michigan State and Utah Valley University? It is time for the NCAA to make use of one of God’s great creations – – the “Pause Button”.
- Let the teams isolate as best they can for two or three weeks and resume practicing just before Christmas.
- Then – – hold your breath now – – look at the infection rates and viral spread in early January and let epidemiology suggest what the next step(s) should be.
- Then follow the science…
- Then play conference games only once the science says it is rational and prudent to do so.
What is the downside there? Maybe the season does not resume until Feb or even March. Maybe the NCAA Tournament does not happen until May or early June. So what?
The college basketball mavens did the right thing in March 2020 shutting down the sport unequivocally. They deserve praise for doing something that was not popular at the time but in hindsight was particularly important. Things are different now; we know more about the coronavirus and one of the things we know is that it is widespread throughout the country and it is not nearly contained. I think it is time for the college basketball mavens to take a deep breath and assess what might be “the right thing” to do now.
Finally, since I mentioned Brad Dickson above, here is another of his Tweets related to the idea of traveling about and gathering with friends and family these days:
“Listen to me. Thanksgiving and Christmas have now both been canceled. Stay home, don’t mingle with your extended family. Many of your family members don’t like you anyway. If you don’t do this, we’re prepared to cancel your birthday too. Thanks.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………