COVID-19, Game Cancellations, and the NCAA Tournament

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

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Further to the Seton Hall Covid issues thread, I am starting a new thread with its focus on ‘cancelled’ games and the NCAA Tournament itself.

I don’t see Creighton making a huge effort to try and reschedule a road game unless there are future openings created by additional cancellations. I could be completely wrong.

If everyone follows that thinking they won't get any potentially cancelled home games rescheduled either.

The following excellent article by Matt Norlander is among the longest I have ever seen on a college basketball website, but it is well worth a read:

How omicron variant of COVID-19 could upend college basketball as leagues flip forfeit rules - Matt Norlander, CBS Sports – December 22, 2021

Until 2021, there had never been widespread forfeit rules in place in college basketball. In fact, the NCAA hasn't recognized forfeits in its official statistics for more than 40 years. But in October and November, almost every conference voted to implement a policy that was crafted with the best of intentions. If a team could not play on account of COVID-19 issues for intra-league competition, it would forfeit and take a loss. The other team would get the win (only in the league standings). If both teams could not play due to COVID, it would be a no contest.

While this measure was brought with plenty of nodding and acceptance, it was never demonstrably popular, at least in men's basketball. CBS Sports polled more than 100 coaches for our annual summer survey series on this very topic; the findings were close to a 50/50 split. But big and small conferences alike instituted the forfeit rule as a public health service and a way to increase vaccination rates not just in men's basketball but throughout all NCAA sports.

Problem is, nobody saw omicron coming. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to the President of the United States, said late last week that omicron would be the dominant variant by January with plenty more breakthrough infections than delta. He's already right about the latter and was wrong about the former -- because omicron is now, by a wide margin, the dominant variant in the U.S.

COVID is messing up college basketball. Again. Teams that have 100% vaccination rates have been sidelined by positive tests. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 55 teams have gone on pause this season, with north of 40 of those pauses active. The Big East has already forfeited three games. Four ACC teams can't play right now. At Yale, fans are no longer allowed at games until at least January.

On Tuesday, the Big 12 and Big West became the first leagues to walk back their forfeit procedures. The ACC followed suit Wednesday morning, followed by the Pac-12 and Mountain West. More leagues -- but not all -- are expected to rescind their policies. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told CBS Sports he expects the league to alter its forfeit rule before his conference begins intra-league games on Dec. 29.

CBS Sports talked with nearly a dozen commissioners this week, and as one told me, omicron has swept through college sports and caused more urgency than at any point since March 2020. Conferences that have changed their forfeit rules will now deem all league games that can't be rescheduled for the 2021-22 season to be no-contests. Fervid attempts will be made to reschedule whenever possible, but those opportunities will be whack-a-mole-like. A twist: the Pac-12 is maintaining an option to still assess a forfeit "in the event the conference standards of sportsmanship are not met in the process of attempting to reschedule a contest."

The Big Ten office said, "The conference is in the process of evaluating its 2021-22 forfeiture policy for conference contests, including whether a contest should automatically be considered a forfeit. The Big Ten doesn't have as much urgency around this as other leagues because the conference doesn't resume league play until Jan. 2.

Jackson and WAC commissioner Brian Thornton pointed out that rescheduling games can put other schools at a disadvantage and has downstream effects. Keeping forfeits means the schedule doesn't ever change, and it prevents teams that might -- might -- otherwise try and back out without real consequence in the balance. "It takes any gamesmanship off the table," Jackson said.

Atlantic 10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade said her league's athletic directors are keeping forfeit policies on the books with "agreement to give league authority to reschedule any game and reverse an earlier declared forfeiture." There will be ongoing reviews about no-contests and postponements.

Every commissioner I spoke with expressed some level of surprise over how quickly omicron has changed the calculus. The forfeit rule was put in place to increase vaccination, curb spread and maintain scheduling integrity. Breakthrough cases -- with mostly fully vaccinated but not yet boosted people -- has sideswiped sports.

"We were not able to establish a vaccine mandate across 11 states, so it communicated the importance of getting healthy, staying healthy and vaccination was central to that effort," Sankey said of the SEC. "Number two in that was games need to be played. You may have members of your team unable to play, but we're going to be sure the healthy members of your team are competing."

The end of December has already rocked college sports scheduling, and January promises to be even worse as health officials project omicron cases to skyrocket before a potential dramatic fall later into the winter.

Expect a lot more change in college sports on this front in the coming two weeks.

The article does not specifically address the 2022 NCAA Tournament, but if many of the NET Top 50 teams in mid-March are significantly affected by numerous unplayed games or player/team unavailability for the Tournament, the 2022 NCAA Tournament may turn out to be the most controversial ever.

College basketball hit hard by COVID-19 cancellations - Matt Norlander, CBS Sports – December 21, 2021

Teams affected by COVID-19

Here is the list of schools affected by COVID-19 protocols, which will be updated as necessary, should more schools need to be added. Last updated: Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.

1. Akron (currently paused)
2. Abilene Christian
3. Binghamton (currently paused)
4. Boston College (currently paused)
5. Bryant (currently paused)
6. Chicago State
7. Cleveland State (currently paused)
8. Colorado (currently paused)
9. Colorado State (currently paused)
10. Coppin State (currently paused)
11. Cornell (currently paused)
12. DePaul (currently paused)
13. Drexel (currently paused)
14. Duquesne (currently paused)
15. Evansville (currently paused)
16. Fairleigh Dickinson (currently paused)
17. FIU (currently paused)
18. Florida State (currently paused)
19. Fordham (currently paused)
20. Hampton (currently paused)
21. Georgetown (currently paused)
22. George Washington (currently paused)
23. Georgia State
24. Georgia Tech (currently paused)
25. Grand Canyon (currently paused)
26. Long Beach State (currently paused)
27. Louisville (currently paused)
28. Loyola Chicago (currently paused)
29. Loyola Maryland (currently paused)
30. Memphis (currently paused)
31. Morgan State (currently paused)
32. Nevada
33. Northeastern (currently paused)
34. Northern Illinois (currently paused)
35. Ohio State (currently paused)
36. Oregon State
37. Penn State (currently paused)
38. Purdue Fort Wayne (currently paused)
39. Rhode Island (currently paused)
40. Rice (currently paused)
41. Rutgers (currently paused)
42. Saint Joseph's (currently paused)
43. Saint Louis
44. Seton Hall
45. St. Francis Brooklyn (currently paused)
46. Syracuse (currently paused)
47. Texas Southern (currently paused)
48. Tulane (currently paused)
49. UCLA (currently paused)
50. UC Irvine (currently paused)
51. UC Riverside (currently paused)
52. USC (currently paused)
53. UTRGV
54. VCU (currently paused)
55. Wagner
56. Washington

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United States Coronavirus Cases – Worldometers – updated continuously

COVID-19 Forecasts: Cases - CDC.gov/coronavirus – updated December 22, 2021

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[ArmyVet]

Does the league require some sort of verification of testing or contact tracing before allowing a game to be canceled? I think what FF is saying is that it doesn't seem to be impossible or even improbable that a team could selectively cancel a game or two by playing loose with the rules.

[gtmoBlue]

BE Rescinds Forfeiture policy:

1. Some coaches will inevitably attempt to game the system and avoid playing the toughest opponents.
a) IMO the BE Execs. should have left the forfeiture in place. Forfeiture eliminated any doubt and debate.
b) It's going to be difficult to reschedule games and honestly many coaches are not going to be eager to do so.

2. Butler & the Jays were the only 2 teams to play the entire conference slate last season. Eight teams played at least 16 games.
a) Four teams played 19 games, Marq, SH, Stj, & Prov.
b) Uconn - 17,
c) Gtwn - 16,
d) Nova & DePaul - 15,
e) Xav - 13.

3. Will the BE mandate a 16 game minimum for RS Championship eligibility? Will they institute a weighting system for Wins/losses?
a) Nova 'won' the RS while playing a quarter (5) less games (15 of 20 games)? How is that possible?

4. Will the BE penalize low numbers of conf. games by seeding those teams on Wednesday in the BET?

5. Will the NCAA mandate a 25 or 27 game minimum for NCAA Tourney eligibility?

[Omaha1]

Georgetown at Creighton for next week 12/28 has already been canceled? Goodness.

[Omaha1]

Georgetown at Creighton for next week 12/28 has already been canceled? Goodness.

Creighton’s next scheduled game is Jan. 1 at Marquette. If the Big East doesn’t get them an opponent until then they’ll be coming off of a 14-day layoff despite being available to play.

[Omaha1]

Interesting Twitter thoughts from former assistant AD Kevin Sarver:

Other factors include: FOX must have said it wants the games and is willing to try and find broadcast windows for rescheduled games; each game not played = a reduction in TV money for the league/schools; each home game not played = ticket/donation revenue losses for home teams…

$ is important. Don’t see it as mercenary, just realistic and honest. Also if vaxxed 18-23 year olds aren’t allowed to compete vs other vaxxed 18-23 year olds then college athletics will be on pause/postponement for years…

[Omaha1]

Multiple football bowl games have now been canceled too.

[adoraz]

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Teams affected by COVID-19 - Last updated: Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 8:00 PM ET

1. Abilene Christian
2. Akron
3. American (currently paused)
4. Binghamton (currently paused)
5. Boston College (currently paused)
6. Bryant (currently paused)
7. Chicago State
8. Cleveland State (currently paused)
9. Colorado (currently paused)
10. Colorado State (currently paused)
11. Coppin State (currently paused)
12. Cornell
13. DePaul (currently paused)
14. Drexel (currently paused)
15. Duquesne (currently paused)
16. Evansville (currently paused)
17. Fairleigh Dickinson (currently paused)
18. FIU (currently paused)
19. Florida State (currently paused)
20. Fordham (currently paused)
21. Georgetown (currently paused)
22. Georgia Tech (currently paused)
23. George Washington (currently paused)
24. Georgia State
25. Georgia Tech (currently paused)
26. Grand Canyon (currently paused)
27. Hampton (currently paused)
28. Harvard
29. Hawaii (currently paused)
30. Houston (currently paused)
31. Long Beach State (currently paused)
32. Louisville (currently paused)
33. Loyola Chicago (currently paused)
34. Loyola Maryland (currently paused)
35. Memphis (currently paused)
36. Morgan State (currently paused)
37. Nevada
38. NJIT
39. Norfolk State (currently paused)
40. Northeastern (currently paused)
41. Northern Illinois (currently paused)
42. Ohio State
43. Oregon State
44. Penn State (currently paused)
45. Purdue Fort Wayne (currently paused)
46. Rhode Island (currently paused)
47. Rice (currently paused)
48. Rutgers (currently paused)
49. Saint Joseph's (currently paused)
50. Saint Louis
51. San Jose State (currently paused)
52. Seton Hall
53. St. Francis Brooklyn (currently paused)
54. Stanford (currently paused)
55. Syracuse
56. Texas Southern (currently paused)
57. Tulane (currently paused)
58. UCLA (currently paused)
59. UC Irvine (currently paused)
60. UC Riverside (currently paused)
61. UNC Greensboro
62. USC (currently paused)
63. UTRGV
64. VCU (currently paused)
65. Wagner
66. Washington

Helpful list, but why is a random mid-major conference highlighted in red? Would be more helpful if you chose top 50/100 NET or Power conference teams.

St. John's sucks this year, but I don't go on opposing message boards pretending they have any relevance.

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.

[ArmyVet]

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.

[stever20]

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.

totally agree with you, especially the NFL.