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The Ivy League announced Thursday evening that winter sports for the 2020-21 season were cancelled in an effort to mitigate transmission of COVID-19. Was eliminating Ivy hoops the right move? Our contributors offer their thoughts:
A quiet Saturday on the college basketball front was upended just after three o’clock with Adam Zagoria’s tweet:
Sources: Two Ivy League schools are highly unlikely to play men’s hoops this year and it’s possible the whole league won’t play at all.
“I have a feeling it would be the whole league isn’t going to play,” one Ivy League asst coach.
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) October 17, 2020
With a growing number of colleges cancelling in-person plans as well as fall sports in response to COVID-19, questions will soon shift to the status of winter sports. Since experts believe there will be a significant increase in cases and deaths as flu season arrives and activities moving indoors amid colder weather, it is difficult to image a return to a normal world, much less a normal sports world, by the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021.
If there is no large-scale vaccine available or significant improvement in testing as previewed by Yale’s SalivaDirect COVID-19 test, winter teams, including men’s and women’s basketball, will not be permitted to play their traditional 4 1/2 month schedules (or 2 1/2 months in the Ivy League’s case).
Could something shorter and less traditional be done to allow college hoops to be played this winter?
When the Ivy League canceled its conference basketball tournaments in March as a precaution against COVID-19, it set off a firestorm of controversy in league circles that soon abated when the threat of the novel coronavirus sunk in. The rest of the sports world soon followed the Ivy League’s lead.
The Ivy League isn’t skipping Harvard.
The league announced on Twitter Thursday that its men’s and women’s conference tournaments will take place at Lavietes Pavilion March 12-14, 2021. The tournaments would have been held in March had they not been canceled as a precaution against the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to devastate the nation, the areas surrounding all eight Ivies are doing what they can to protect others. Here are some ways to help the helpers, categorized by Ivy area. If you know of other organizations helping out in these areas, please email [email protected] or post it in a comment below.
Boston Children’s Hospital is seeking donations for masks, gowns and other miscellaneous items and will accept all donations in original, unopened packaging. From outside the organization, please ship to
BCH-DONATIONS
MA2 Receiving
53 Binney Street
Boston, MA 02115
ATTN: Brian Becquart
Anyone with questions may contact Erica Denhoff directly at [email protected].