With only a couple of hiccups, the last 2 1/2 months of college football have largely been a success. One week away from tip-off, there’s no reason college basketball shouldn’t be able to follow suit.
Eight months after the cancellation of March Madness, college basketball is poised to make its triumphant return. The schedules have been built, rules have been put in place for practices, and tournaments have already been planned. The NCAA is in talks to host March Madness entirely in Indiana. Everything is ready, so long as politicians and bureaucrats stay out of the way.
New Mexico is one such example. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has refused to provide an exemption for college sports teams that are unable to practice due to restrictions on gatherings of five people or more, leaving some teams unable to practice. California teams such as Stanford University and San Jose State University were forced to use tennis courts for practices.
The NCAA’s guidelines recommend immediately halting team activities over a single positive test, whether from players or coaches or support staff. Teams such as California State University, Fresno, have already been forced into multiple 14-day freezes. This kind of hard-line rule, when paired with the amount of false-positive tests we have seen repeatedly in the sports world, is the kind of thing that can quickly derail a season.
The Big Ten conference is an example of this. After initially setting up a solid football schedule, with built-in bye weeks to account for delays, conference leadership was spooked by public pressure into canceling the season. After a successful first week of college football showed how foolish that decision was, they made plans to return — but with an eight-week, eight-game schedule that left no margin for error.
When college sports bureaucrats get too involved, athletes tend to pay the price. Playoff hopeful Ohio State University has already lost one game from its schedule and could quickly lose more if a few other teams are forced into cancellations.
As with college football, the risks involved with playing college basketball are minimal. Although it is played indoors, it also benefits from much smaller rosters and coaching staffs.
So, college basketball should proceed as planned next week, as athletes and coaches have wanted. Teams have the resources to play out the season safely and keep young athletes who have a far lower risk of complications from the virus from spreading it to more vulnerable communities. Busybody politicians and fearful bureaucrats should not neuter game and practice schedules, and we should be watching another exciting March Madness tournament in 2021.
