LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The University of Louisville announced Tuesday that the Cardinals’ basketball program suspended all activities after two members of the program tested positive for COVID-19.
The Sacramento Kings and Milwaukee Bucks made similar announcements Sunday. They were preceded by the Los Angeles Clippers last Thursday.
There have been others. The football teams (Clemson and Louisiana State) that played in the national championship game last season had previously announced more than 50 players had positive tests.
There will be more.
“It was a matter of time before we saw positive tests, hence the protocols that we developed and are implementing,” Louisville Athletic Director Vince Tyra said in a text message Tuesday after the announcement.
Exactly. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey issued a statement to ESPN on Monday, admitting the COVID-19 situation was “not trending in the right direction.”
This will be the tentative way of the world as basketball joins baseball, football and other teams. Eventually, we will discover how much athletic activity is possible during a pandemic. Nationally, the number of infections has been increasing, not declining.
There is no playbook for this. The virus does not care how many titles you have won or how fancy your workout facilities are. We’re in the informational, experimental phase as sports tries to determine what is possible since the virus forced the original shutdown March 12.
The U of L announcement was not surprising. Although the school had declined to release any information about test results, Tyra predicted that positive tests were inevitable before the first group of 60 or so football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball players returned to campus about a month ago. They had to be.
Louisville’s return to the basketball facility, as outlined by sophomore forward Samuell Williamson last week, featured mostly the standard activities many teams have attempted.
Groups of three or four players in spaced segments in the weight room. Individual drills in the practice gym, practicing shooting and ball-handling.
Minimal time in the facility. Enforced social distancing. Repeated cleaning of balls and weights. Repeated hand washing strongly encouraged. Wear your mask.
Everybody knows the list of important boxes to check. It’s our responsibility to consistently check them. A group of Division I basketball coaches, including John Calipari of Kentucky and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, participated in a public service announcement encouraging the use of masks last week. They understand their season is at risk.
Williamson said during a conference call with local media members that he and his Cardinal teammates played full-court pick-up games on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
He also said although the players stayed in Minardi Hall, the players’ on-campus dormitory, they had not been restricted to the dorm and basketball practice facility.
“Obviously, Fred (Hina), our athletic trainer, he encourages us to be smart off the court,” Williamson said last week. “But there’s no restrictions on where we can be outside of being at the gym and in Minardi.”
Inevitable question: How can you play full-court socially distant basketball?
Nobody has made the all-defensive team maintaining a position 6 feet from the player they guarded. I’m waiting for a coach to post an instructional video of how to drive to the rim and remain socially distant from five defenders.
I’m not picking on basketball. Football plays typically start in huddles. They feature a series of collisions. They conclude in piles. Yelling, spitting and heavy breathing are generally part of the process.
Huddles, collisions, piles, heavy breathing in a pandemic?
Baseball has tag plays. The job of the first baseman is to keep baserunners close to the bag. Catchers and home plate umpires stand close enough that they can make an intelligent guess what the other had for lunch.
At a time when contact is recommended to be eliminated or at least minimized, sports is often a world of frequent contact.
Those are the rules. But the virus does not care about the rules.
Can teams prepare for, start and actually complete seasons without putting participants at greater risk of developing the virus.
That is still to be determined.
Baseball is about two weeks from its first games but a string of players have chosen not to compete. Others have tested positive and moved to quarantine.
Ditto for the NBA, which plans to take 22 teams to a “bubble” they will create in Orlando, Florida, for the league’s planned restart July 30.
Louisville’s basketball season is supposed to start in November. The virus will have the final word on that — as it will on all the other plans the world of sports is making.
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