If only the Big 12 Conference was selected to stage its men’s basketball championship for seven days or more, customary, seven days before the NCAA tournament selection, only 12 weeks ago, we would hear this I was waiting to see if Kansas would be available to compete in March Madness.
But just angry.
It is entirely possible that Kansas had to deal with a positive COVID-19 test in their program even when they withdrew home to Lawrence, and still faced the same predilection to participate in the NCAA Tournament. Or it could have been some other program besides KU, Virginia and North Carolina A&T.
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It is not that positive tests, stagnation, postponement, cancellation and disruption have not occurred during the 2020-21 season.
There will be many who criticize the college basketball establishment for not hurling conference tournaments. If there was more time in between, they would say – they are saying – then the situation that is developing now would not have happened.
He is a liar. It could be just as easily, it would have been private rather than just extremely public.
We do not know how or when a KU player came into contact with the virus. Remember, KU dropped two players home in Lawrence due to the COVID protocol. Wichita State, which opened in the AAC tournament on Friday, did the same. If the only requirement to avoid the virus was not playing in a basketball tournament, it would not be an epidemic.
We only know that we know that someone tested positive, as the Jayhawks were forced to withdraw from the Big 12 tournament and as a result their status to the NCAAs remains undetermined.
If they were home in Lawrence this week and a player tested positive, it would be as secret as they wanted until they showed up in Indianapolis, without the man or KU announcing that he had to call the NCAA and Was forced to declare it was not available to participate in the tournament.
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The overwhelming majority of 31 conference tournaments have progressed without COVID disruptions to date. It is a terrible disappointment for Kansas, Virginia, Duke, North Carolina A&T, Florida International and Northern Iowa that they were unable to complete their quest for the tournament championship. In this way, college sports have gone on since his return.
It was a disappointment to not have an Ohio State-Michigan game to close the Big Ten football season. It was a disappointment that more than a dozen defaulters were unavailable for the CFP Championship game. That event was staged 10 days after the semi-finals. The delay did not help those players to get involved.
It would be lovely if there was a simple answer to this, but there is no perfect way to complete a college basketball season and assure that everyone is around when the biggest games are played. Alarmism, searching for the simplest of the most complex answers to problems – it’s not helping anything.
There will be 68 teams in Indianapolis next week. Hope the Jayvaks and Cavaliers are among them, as they have earned it.
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