Coronavirus Impact

Unfurled's proposal is pretty solid if we are in a way better place in December. Setting aside my skepticism about this country's ability to turn this around, I do wonder if it's still asking a lot to have all these teams in a particular set of cities. Would they stay on-campus in other school's dorms (assuming residential campus populations would be drastically smaller)? Also, if teams have an abridged training period in the summer/fall, they still might not be in shape to play 20 games in such a short period. There are expanded rosters in some sports, two extra subs in soccer. If anything, I could see the A10 actually shortening the season, maybe to a 13-game round robin.

I love this idea though, Unfurled, and I think you're on the right track.
 
I agree with Commenter. I also think that it is too forward thinking for an NCAA conference to pull off. The NCAA cant even walk and chew gum so there is no way they would be able to organize that kind of system even though the TBT and other major sports have shown them how to do it. At this point I will be happy to have any kind of season of any length. Part of me hopes it gets shit canned and nobody loses a year of eligibility instead of a 13 game season because it would be a huge waste of a scholarship year for a team that has a chance to do some damage.
 
The plans are all interesting and make a lot of sense, but at the end of the day, nobody wants a watered-down bullshit season. They (and all the students) are already getting a watered down bullshit education with most, if not all of it, being online/virtual this fall and possibly into spring semesters. People don't pay good $$ for their kids to attend college virtually. It's not the same, the quality is just not there. I hate the idea of our guys losing a year of eligibility because they played a 13 game season.

There is no good way to slice this one up, and with the decisions that are being made regarding schooling, unfortunately the best idea might be shit-can the year and pretend it isn't happening.
 
Long, not joking post alert from Lil Bona X/BonaCommenter!!!

I just thought of one idea in the wake of the TBT/MLS is Back. I'll spit ball this at you guys. Let's assume conditions in this dystopia remain rough through January and online classes/hybrid models remain in effect through the spring semester. What if each conference did a bubble in February/March?

As an A10 example:
  • Two seven-team divisions
  • Have the tournament with best infrastructure to safely house teams and located in an area that also has lowest infection rate at the time
  • Same testing/social distancing protocols you see for TBT, MLS and NBA
  • 15 days in "bubble," will allow players to keep up with online classes
  • 12 days of games, each team plays 6 division opponents (Bonnies get to play Fordham all 6 times)
  • Top 4 in each division make the "A10 Tournament," three days for quarters/semis/final, just like in the before times
  • all 32 conference champions then enter a second bubble for a single-elimination "NCAA Tournament"
  • sorry, no at-larges, we're already playing with fire (good luck getting P5 to agree to this), maybe some conferences don't play and at-larges can fill the void?
I know it is overly simplified and this doesn't account for all the lost training, players living off-campus and how readily available testing is by then. I have to wonder if it's morally right for any sports leagues to be hoarding all the testing needed to safely run a bubble when people are waiting at least a week for results. I'm a prime example of that. I've had a dry cough (no other symptoms) since around last Tuesday. I got tested at CVS (shoved that sucker up my nose, Pissah! Aloha!). Quest Diagnostics are in charge of that test and they're saying 7-9 days. What's the fucking point when you're supposed to be quarantined for 14 days if you have it? Now imagine if I weren't in my 20s and if I had more serious pre-existing conditions beyond only chronic sinus infections in the fall.

I'm getting off track, but it's worth thinking of whether it's ethical to be using thousands of tests every day on athletes when our testing is an unmitigated disaster. TBT's player pool is microscopic when compared to all the tests needed in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, WNBA, NWSL, USL and NASCAR.

Ultimately, we should not play any college sports if we are not in an extremely safe place as a country (safer than allowing pro sports). I love the Bonnies just as much as you all and I would hate to possibly see the junior year of Osun/Lofton/Welch not happen (no guarantee they come back for a 5th year if given extra eligibility). However, I'm not going to advocate for college athletes to risk death or long-term/permanent health risks to play for free in any kind of normal looking schedule. Cattaraugus County is dodging most of the bullets, but how do you expect our guys to safely play at Davidson, where cases are skyrocketing in the south? How can we welcome teams from some of the largest cities in the world like NYC, Philly or Dayton if cases spike again there?

I just think that, as much as I shit on TBT, their bubble model clearly worked. Even on a larger scale, MLS is doing relatively well. Two teams did have to withdraw due to outbreaks of like 8+ within their own teams, but I think only a couple other players outside of those two teams tested positive. I think we'll also see more success out of the NBA/NHL bubbles than if the NFL doesn't do a single-city bubble or whatever the fuck MLB is doing. This is just my idea of doing something in 2021 if our country continues being absolutely stupid for most of what's left of 2020.

By the way, everyone, PSAC canceled sports today through December 31st, so that effectively ends any hope of Gannonfest 2020.

🤔🤔🤔
 
Has anything been discussed regarding a delayed start, similar to what the big guns of college football are eyeing?

The NBA draft is going to be all backwards this year. It would be in the NBA's best interest to move next year's draft in accordance with a full NCAA season so that they have more time to evaluate.

Is a delayed start- say mid February, that lasts until say mid june- effectively a 3 month bump- that unrealistic? If clinical trials enter their final review phase in October as it currently appears, the ball will begin to roll with 3rd party manufacturers striking advanced production deals with these companies, in order to ramp up supply. A combination of vaccination and better treatments by February doesn't seem that ludicrous. Maybe then it also wouldn't be that ludicrous to believe a full season from February to June could be played.
 

It's looking more and more like this is what's necessary to have a successful sports league right now. We'll see how the NBA and NHL do. Also, if you did this bubble on January 1, they wouldn't even need to worry about courses. Spring classes usually begin January 19, 2021, or in some cases January 12. When making my "pod" schedule I split teams up into North and South divisions (the South is pretty stacked, and includes every team south of Philly):

North
Duquesne
Fordham
La Salle
Rhode Island
Saint Joseph's
St. Bonaventure
UMass-Amherst

South
Davidson
Dayton
George Mason
GW
Saint Louis
Richmond
VCU
 
It's looking more and more like this is what's necessary to have a successful sports league right now. We'll see how the NBA and NHL do. Also, if you did this bubble on January 1, they wouldn't even need to worry about courses. Spring classes usually begin January 19, 2021, or in some cases January 12. When making my "pod" schedule I split teams up into North and South divisions (the South is pretty stacked, and includes every team south of Philly):

North
Duquesne
Fordham
La Salle
Rhode Island
Saint Joseph's
St. Bonaventure
UMass-Amherst

South
Davidson
Dayton
George Mason
GW
Saint Louis
Richmond
VCU

The upside of a conference bubble is that basically all college classes are going to offer some kind of online component, so players could still keep up academically. Even in the best case vaccine scenarios (anti-vaxxers are going to make it a fiasco, but I digress), Spring 2021 will not be a normal college semester.

If only we had the infrastructure to house all 14 teams, I'd say invite everyone into the Bona Bubble. The COVID case numbers in Cattaraugus County are easily way lower than anyone else in the A10. The Richter Center could possibly be converted to a second court for games if needed, or you have two practice courts. However, I don't even think we could safely house players/coaches/staff/the St. Joe's Hawk if every single dorm was empty. Plus, good luck getting everyone to agree to come to Bona's in the winter.

Either way, I think given how much we have fucked up the virus, the bubble model is the only way to safely play sports in the U.S. right now. MLS and NWSL have been huge successes from a health standpoint, so far, so good in the NBA and NHL. Other countries can travel and play in home stadiums/arenas because the case rates are so much smaller than ours.
 
I think at this point there's no sports without a tight bubble. But even TBT lost 4 or 5 teams to the virus in that scenario while testing daily. I just don't see how you can do that with college athletes. Also, I don't know if any of you have gotten tested recently but in NYC the results are delayed by more than 14 days. Unless you can get 24 hour testing it will never work and these aren't sports leagues which can pay millions to cut the line....
 
I think at this point there's no sports without a tight bubble. But even TBT lost 4 or 5 teams to the virus in that scenario while testing daily. I just don't see how you can do that with college athletes. Also, I don't know if any of you have gotten tested recently but in NYC the results are delayed by more than 14 days. Unless you can get 24 hour testing it will never work and these aren't sports leagues which can pay millions to cut the line....

It took my 15 days to get mine, so I hear you on that. It's unethical that sports leagues are jumping to the front of the testing line because of money, but I'm sure plenty of other corporations are also doing it, so that just really shows how screwed up we are. Maybe by the end of 2020 we will have the 1-3 day testing turnaround time that can realistically reduce the spread? Who knows anymore...

TBT, NWSL and MLS all had at least one team not enter the bubble or get kicked out right after entering the bubble, but once everything got going, it was fine. TBT got down to no cases after a week, NWSL and MLS cut it down too. I think in order for teams to train, they would have to be in like a month-long training "bubble" (really just being on campus like summer practice usually is, just with way more restrictions) before entering the conference bubble. No one has played since Fordham won A10s on March 11th, so it's not like the teams will be able to jump right into a bubble and start playing full speed after like a week-long quarantine.
 
I know, res is the King of Smarm. You've got to admire him for sticking to business. I'm also sticking to mine, which is unreasonable expectations. In this case, it's that the autocratic NCAA actually lets loose on the reins enough to let members come up with their own plans. I live in a city of 150K where a grand total of 7 people died from the virus, if government data are to be believed. I took a bigger risk every time I got on a motorcycle, especially after consuming a few of my favorite beverages. I'm pretty sure what works where I live or Olean is different from what works in NYC. SBUnfurled's pod plan, which I saw on twitter, might be a good option. Here's a good philosophy to help come up with a plan:



So the only plans that are working right now in major sports are the ones that are in a bubble giving tests every. single. day. You need a centralized location with a powerful institution that can enforce remarkably difficult to meet standards. Even with all of that in place the cost will most likely outweigh the benefits, particulary for college sports.

Guess what league is allowing teams to essentially come up with their own plans right now? The MLB. How's that going?

My greatest worry for the NCAA is that if you look at the NHL they have done 4,000 tests IN ONE WEEK. I have a buddy who works for the NHL and he has to live in the bubble for 3 months straight and they all had to take a 25% paycut. For division 1 sports I find it hard to believe the NCAA is willing to dole out the cash to get whatever number of tests would be necessary to meet that standard. It will also be hard to justify given that the virus will probably be like every other virus and wreak havoc during the winter and spring months. The optics won't be good if you can't get tested in Oklahoma (I say this because I hope Castiglione gets Covid), but the NCAA is testing division 1 players 60,000 times a week.

Just like schools reopening, once someone actually thinks critically about the logistical nightmare this would present it starts to feel like death by a thousand papercuts. Unless NostraTomGleason is correct in his remarkably sober assessment of the Covid pandemic, I think we're wasting our time.

My sister got it and 3 months on she is still on oxygen and struggles to move. Wakes up some days with a 103 degree fever that breaks sometimes a few hours later or sometimes doesn't for days. She's 47. This isn't pussification, it's people literally not wanting to die. You knew if you went off that motorcycle you would break a leg or die. No one knows what the long-term consequences of this are, and most aren't willing to go back to their shitty job that didn't pay enough to find out.
 
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Until now, I guess most US sports fans haven't thought much about it, but a pandemic seems to be heading for our shores. We already have many diagnosed cases of coronavirus and it will grow exponentially if it follows the pattern of other countries. It's been a month since China cancelled major sporting events, so we should consider the possibility that severe measures of that type will soon be imposed in the USA. We are a couple weeks away from the A10 tourney and three weeks to the NCAA.
Life saving measures are foremost, so I'm not arguing against whatever needs to be done. It would certainly put us in "wait until next year" mode.

Damn unfortunate how well this thread aged... hoping to talk A10 hoops with y’all soon :-/
 
Yes, most of my favorite people from my days at Bona are dead at this point, but none of them died from this particular pandemic. In fact, I still don't personally know anyone who's had it. However, I do have an elderly relative, who's a retired Maryknoll missionary and many in the residence there in NY for retired priests and nuns were infected with it and many died, so he and those still living there are in quarantine. Sorry for all of you who actually know someone who was affected or possibly died. About 2.8 million people die annually in the US. The main causes are heart disease and cancer, which account for close to half of the total, then another half million or so are due to accident, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke. So life's a bitch and then you die, but we knew that. The kids are back on campus and all passed the screening, right? Like Grant, I'm looking forward to talking some A10 basketball.
 
X, I thought you would have weighed in on '79's measures of central tendency joke. Figured that would be in your wheelhouse.
 
Sorry, res, I'm just now reading it after seeing your post. I guess the societal dystopia going on now has just turned me off to reading much of anything that was written since about 1945. Just spending my time on operator maintenance of my weapons and stashing more and more precious metals in places deemed secure. Sorry if my negative view of the world affects anything I've written. Guess I really don't give a flying fuck on a rolling donut about much of anything nowadays. Hoping we've resumed some semblance of normalcy by the time November rolls around. Pax et bonum.
 
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