After playing UM two days ago, Northwestern MBB postpones next game due to COVID
The roller coaster continues. Here is hoping everyone stays healthy or returns to health quickly.
January 17th, 2023 at 6:31 PM ^
I was thinking how Jordan essentially bragged about playing sick. Third base on the other hand uses it as an excuse for going back to second base.
January 17th, 2023 at 3:39 PM ^
Well, what we supposed to do you moron?
The Stork.
January 17th, 2023 at 1:17 PM ^
Northwestern also has injuries --- seems they are below 8 scholarship players who are neither injured nor COVID-positive.
Which --- I understand that they're the smallest school in the B1G, but EVERY B1G school should be able to find enough walk-ons for situations like this. Play the game or forfeit. This isn't fair to Iowa.
The Arizona State women, just last week, were in the same situation. They didn't travel for their 2-game weekend road swing to Utah & Colorado --- the Pac-12 forced them to forfeit.
January 17th, 2023 at 1:33 PM ^
Walk-on players won't help. The conference threshold for safe competition is a minimum of seven scholarship players and one coach, at least according to this article from last year.
January 17th, 2023 at 2:04 PM ^
But aren't multiple scholarship players getting injured and/or sick at the same time simply a thing that happens occasionally in life? There are thousands of D1 college basketball games per season - simple probability says an occurrence like this is inevitable at some point in a season.
What happens at a business - a bunch of folks in leadership positions in the same department concurrently aren't available (they quit, death in the family, sickness, paternity leave, etc). Does that department simply stop operating because their leadership is down X%? Or do other folk step up to fill in the gap for a time?
This is bad luck for Northwestern. But this distinction as to scholarship players - I don't get it. There are hundreds of Northwestern undergrads who could theoretically suit up for a game or two. This isn't a sport like football - playing walk-ons wouldn't put anyone at undue risk of injury. They can still field a team.
January 17th, 2023 at 2:32 PM ^
Depends on the scale you're talking about. Northwestern isn't shutting the program down, they canceled a game.
It's the equivalent of canceling a meeting or perhaps a conference in the business world and that does happen when a lot of people in a dept are sick.
But there's also a rule that below a certain point, you're not allowed to play. Business is less binary than that. If just one person on a team is still in the office, they can usually still do their work without depending on the rest of the team.
January 17th, 2023 at 3:24 PM ^
A basketball team is much more similar in size to a small business. I’ve certainly had small contracting firms postpone an appointment because of illness.
January 17th, 2023 at 4:58 PM ^
“There are hundreds of Northwestern undergrads who could theoretically suit up for a game or two”
Lol, you can’t be serious? You really think a major college program can just grab some kids from campus and expect them to play a high level basketball game that by the way is on television? And to be able to do said thing after at best a couple days of practice?!?
I have always thought your posts were ridiculous but this one is just dumb.
January 17th, 2023 at 5:47 PM ^
My freshman year at Penn State (the 1996-97 season) ---- PSU hoops was beset by a bunch of injuries. They brought on several walk-ons, including David Macklin and Titicus Pettigrew from the football team. Those walk-ons played in about a dozen B1G games apiece, averaging in the mid single digit minutes per game. (B1G of course is "high-level", to use your adjective)
There's a real-life example of it happening (shoot, an example w/ an absolute control freak like JoePa allowing it to happen via the usage of some of "his" 4-star football talent!).
I'm sure emergency usage of walk-ons has happened dozens to hundreds of other times at various schools over the years too.
Anyway, yes I am absolutely serious. Fair enough if you find my post ridiculous but I find this postponement ridiculous.
January 17th, 2023 at 2:18 PM ^
Cue the MAGA vaccine truthers in 3, 2, 1,….
January 17th, 2023 at 2:26 PM ^
A lot of people don't trust anything they hear about the Covid vaccine at this point. It isn't a MAGA thing, whatever that means anymore. Uptake for basically all vaccinations and flu shots are down across the board, even in high risk populations.
January 17th, 2023 at 3:09 PM ^
Without getting into how and why vaccine hesitancy around COVID came to be and if perhaps there were non-scientific reasons around them, the fact that 29% of adults are against the idea of mandatory MMR vaccination for kids entering school is patently dangerous for everyone and isn't based on some new information or discovery about this vaccine that has been around for decades.
Interestingly, vaccine distrust used to be attributed most prominently with the new age-y, pretty liberal "hippy" types (even if that wasn't always the case) but now it definitely feels like it's become a much more politically-tinged.
January 17th, 2023 at 3:19 PM ^
I think the biggest factor that lead to the distrust of the Covid vaccine was that a lot of the people encouraging and in some cases mandating the vaccine did not behave in a trustworthy manner. And I think the feeling that a lot of people came away with has only increased skepticism as to other vaccines.
January 17th, 2023 at 3:22 PM ^
Oh boy. Please let's here who did not behave in a trustworthy manner about COVID vaccines.
January 17th, 2023 at 3:37 PM ^
Again, I'm not going to get into a political debate about vaccinations in 2023 but I have a hard time squaring people having issues with COVID-19 mandates with non-political rationales for distrust in vaccines like MMR, flu, and HPV, for example.
January 17th, 2023 at 6:18 PM ^
Exposing kids to measles to own the Libs
January 17th, 2023 at 2:41 PM ^
People keep trying to convince themselves that covid is over - and behave in such ways that allow it to persist.
January 17th, 2023 at 5:19 PM ^
Yeah, how about those Chinese?
January 17th, 2023 at 5:40 PM ^
Behave in ways that allow it to persist?
January 18th, 2023 at 9:01 AM ^
Hardly anyone masks any longer, they gather in public enclosed spaces and mass gatherings as normal, freely travel, mostly no longer keep up on covid vaccinations or testing/quarantining, and generally behave as they normally did prior to pandemic.
Obviously the people do not wish to eternally live with pandemic restrictions/behaviors, but a substantial portion of the population wants to completely abandon them... and probably a bit sooner than they should. It is no surprise that people want this, but it should equally be no surprise that covid is still causing problems either.
January 18th, 2023 at 11:39 AM ^
Honestly I don’t think there is anything we can reasonably do to change the trajectory of Covid at this stage. And making extra efforts to do so would bring more harm than good. It’s always going to be with us.
January 18th, 2023 at 5:03 PM ^
It will certainly be "with us" for a long time (always is a very long word - some diseases that have plagued humanity for thousands of years are now effectively gone, so I hesitate to use such terms), but we are still seeing 500+ US deaths *per day* from this (today's rolling average was 537 - and may still spike as new variants arise)... so it isn't like the normal flu or common cold. The "more harm than good" position may not be the most prudent, especially when things like masks are simply an inconvenience.
January 17th, 2023 at 2:50 PM ^
I forgot the meme virus existed.
January 17th, 2023 at 2:59 PM ^
I'm a little surprised they're testing guys for COVID unless they're all showing signs of being ill. If the players are all vaccinated at this point it feels like it would be up to the schools/programs if they want to play the game or not. Now, if they're physically ill and unable to play then I totally get having to postpone, no different than the flu or some other communicable illness.
Anyway, I wish them good health and a speedy recovery. This might wind up being a bigger deal down the line as both Iowa and NW may well be fighting for NCAA bids/seeding.
January 17th, 2023 at 3:44 PM ^
That's still a thing?
January 17th, 2023 at 5:29 PM ^
I just hope they all end up living through this horrible tragedy, but they should also cancel classes and lock down the university, if not the entire state.
January 17th, 2023 at 5:37 PM ^
So if you had three of your best starters out with the flu but could still field a team could you postpone the game?
January 17th, 2023 at 7:24 PM ^
It looks like probably you could now.
January 17th, 2023 at 9:00 PM ^
COVID is still killing roughly 400 people a day in the US, killed 250k+ Americans last year, 20 million+ Americans have long Covid and folks in here are like “roll out the ball and play! The flu is worse!”
We’re doomed.
January 17th, 2023 at 9:28 PM ^
Roll out the ball and play.
January 17th, 2023 at 10:04 PM ^
Give it up.
January 18th, 2023 at 3:03 PM ^
This post brought to you by Pfizer
January 18th, 2023 at 3:01 PM ^
I didn’t even know we were still doing this
January 19th, 2023 at 12:39 AM ^
Moderna stock price approves