As much as I enjoy watching and going to sporting events, I feel its only responsible to begin cancelling anything that will put our people at risk. I think its the hard choice, but the right choice.
As such, I think the NCAA should declare for any sports that has not reached its normal conclusions, should grant each Freshman-Junior athlete an extra year of eligibility to replace for things being cancelled. As for those that are Seniors, I think they too should be granted an extra year as well, with the added fact that they do not count against the teams scholly limit as that would screw the incoming recruits. So basically you’d have your normal team + your seniors for 1 year. I’d also say that for those Seniors that year must be spent at their current school, no jumping around as they would not have been able to do that anyway.
I think this should even be done for Basketball even though the season is almost over. This Senior class will be cheated of conference tournaments and NCAA tournaments. For some a once and a lifetime chance. They should not be punished for events beyond their control that are being taken for safety measures.
Just my opine and a bit of thinking outside the box for how to make it up to the athlete. The universities and NCAA are pulling in tons of cheese from the efforts of these athletes, even if its hurts short term in the pocket, they should do this for all effected sports whether they are revenue generators or not. Basically paying the Seniors to have an extra year. I’m sure in the grand scheme that’s just a drop in the bucket.
If feasible to test all players/coaches & safeguards are in place, would hope that they not cancel the NCAA basketball tournament. Not looking forward to teams playing in empty arenas, but players will likely want to continue the season - if not at risk of contracting & spreading the virus. With the US now effectively on lockdown from travel & vacations, difficult to imagine not having March Madness. Fans will watch. For other NCAA sports where there are more players, understand the need to discontinue the season.
Hopefully this coronavirus does not overflow into football season.
It would seem that classrooms and dormitories would be several times more likely to serve as spawning grounds for an epidemic of this sort than a few ball games. If the powers that be really believe all the hype about it, putting the kibosh on sports assemblages appears to be putting a bandaid on a broken leg.
Jay Bilas is a bit of a blowhard but he made a good point today. Every pro league in the country is shutting down to protect athletes as well as fans, but we’re gonna play a national tournament with unpaid college kids? Not a good look.
The lack of testing is part of the problem. Various official decisions have meant testing has been much less frequent than it should have been over the past month or so, and that’s part of why we are where we are.
Schools are indeed shutting down. Students on spring break are being told not to return to campus. There haven’t been any cases confirmed in NWA yet, but if and when they are UA will follow suit. And it may not take that long.