Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman said their focus is "maintaining a safe environment for our athletes"GETTY IMAGES
Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman during the Learfield IMG College Intercollegiate Athletics Forum addressed the hot-button issue of whether the college basketball season should be played at all right now or should be shut down, at least temporarily. Ackerman said, "I'm not quite there yet on the pause ... but I agree that we have to be vigilant about assessing in the landscape, seeing how our plans are unfolding." She added, "Our focus is on maintaining a safe environment for our athletes. We think we can do that right now with the way we travel, the way we conduct our games. But, I guess I would agree that if the virus significantly worsens, and there are signs that perhaps a break would be in our best interest, I think it would be hard to not support that approach" (Preston Bounds, THE DAILY).
FROM THE TOP: USA TODAY's Christine Brennan writes the pandemic is "raging across the country, killing thousands of Americans and filling hospitals to capacity," and colleges and universities are "playing men's and women's basketball?" Brennan: "What is wrong with them?" Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski is "not alone in his concern about continuing to play a sport during these incredibly trying times," as Pitt men's coach Jeff Capel and Iona men's coach Rick Pitino have also shared their concerns. That is "three well-known coaches, all of them calling for a delay in the season, or at least a serious look at pausing for a month or so." That is "different from what we saw with college football, where so many tough-guy coaches thought they could pummel the coronavirus" (USA TODAY, 12/10). ACC Network’s Wes Durham said the college basketball season is “going to be a moving target as a result of the coronavirus” and now because of the “way the games are being paused and probably some of the ways they’ve been played, coaches are starting to question the value of actually playing the game.” Durham said there is a “void” of leadership in college basketball because there is no “czar” in charge, a “void of someone to step up and make a decision." ACC Network’s Mark Packer: “I don’t want the NCAA to have to be the ones to make a decision. ... Each individual school has a better feel and handle for what is working and not working than somebody in Indianapolis in a subcommittee” (“Packer and Durham,” ACC Network, 12/10).
SERIOUS CONCERN: YAHOO SPORTS' Dan Wetzel wrote Krzyzewski is "worth listening to" because what he has to say about this "halt-and-stop season is exactly what coaches with less gravitas and less stature are saying privately." Over 50 games have already been "canceled or 'postponed' in a season that began on Nov. 25." Wetzel: "Exponentially more will fall by the wayside." It is "clear that these basketball players are little more than television inventory, a chance for their schools and conferences to sell live sports at a time when neither the NBA nor the NHL have started their seasons." Everyone is "penned in except when television cameras are pointed at them" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 12/9). In Raleigh, Luke DeCock writes what Krzyzewski said was the "same thing hundreds of his peers and thousands of his colleagues in college athletics have been saying, or feeling, since July." There has been a "shared general queasiness about this whole operation, a sense of uncomfortability around the blatant exploitation of college students to grease the wheels of the giant economic engine that is college sports" (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 12/10).
