Marquette Golden Eagles men’s and women’s basketball team had two positive COVID tests. This means that both programs have to shut down for 14 days. That is the NCAA rule at the moment. Marquette will not be practicing for two weeks. They are on pause until November 4th then games will start three weeks later. With a young team trying to replace Markus Howard, things are extremely difficult for the Golden Games. This rule seems like it would be complicated moving forward but why this rule will be adjusted once the season begins.

The quarantine rules seem a little ridiculous compared to what we’ve seen in other sports. PGA didn’t shut down when there were COVID-19 cases. NFL shut down when they hit a certain threshold. The same went for the MLB. But these things happened when the season already went underway. For whatever it’s worth, the NBA shut down practices for two weeks when they had a couple of COVID-19 cases before the bubble started. Maybe, this is something that will be more for preseason versus what will happen during the season.

If teams need to shut down for two weeks during college basketball, this will make things extremely difficult for the season. COVID-19 cases are going to happen. It is easy to adjust if there is a bit of space, but if they have to shut down for two weeks, this could wipe out three to five games. They need to figure out a better protocol that does two things. One making sure that everyone is healthy and safe. Two making sure that games can go on with limited and expected interruptions.

The good news is we have seen all of the different sports adjusting in real-time. That has happened throughout the entire pandemic. College basketball will do the same thing. And if they do not, things will be even more chaotic than they are right now.

Charlie.