The unofficial online home for fans of the Old Dominion University Monarchs. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Starting to see similar cancellations of games in mens and womens hoops as we did during FB season. My question is, what has changed to make Wood and President Broderick opt to play basketball? Do they think they made a mistake? Vaccine just became available recently. Numbers were trending up and there were reports for us to prepare for a "rough" winter with COVID. I am sure some will say finances, travel cost etc. but with no revenue coming in I would think if the decision was financial it should apply across the board. If in fact it was purely the safety of the players/coaches/staff then they should have been consistent and scrapped winter sports also.

So what changed?

We thought we'd be pretty good in basketball is one difference that comes to mind.

(01-15-2021 02:33 PM)oduhoops71 Wrote:  Starting to see similar cancellations of games in mens and womens hoops as we did during FB season. My question is, what has changed to make Wood and President Broderick opt to play basketball? Do they think they made a mistake? Vaccine just became available recently. Numbers were trending up and there were reports for us to prepare for a "rough" winter with COVID. I am sure some will say finances, travel cost etc. but with no revenue coming in I would think if the decision was financial it should apply across the board. If in fact it was purely the safety of the players/coaches/staff then they should have been consistent and scrapped winter sports also.

So what changed?

maybe part of it was that they didn't want to lose 2 seasons. That and basketball has a better chance of bring NCAA tournament money to the budget. An empty football stadium and a shotty TV contract would not do the same.

(01-15-2021 02:33 PM)oduhoops71 Wrote:  Starting to see similar cancellations of games in mens and womens hoops as we did during FB season. My question is, what has changed to make Wood and President Broderick opt to play basketball? Do they think they made a mistake? Vaccine just became available recently. Numbers were trending up and there were reports for us to prepare for a "rough" winter with COVID. I am sure some will say finances, travel cost etc. but with no revenue coming in I would think if the decision was financial it should apply across the board. If in fact it was purely the safety of the players/coaches/staff then they should have been consistent and scrapped winter sports also.

So what changed?

The difference is about 4 months of watching how other institutions make it work. When ODU made the decision to not play the football season almost no schools had played any kind of intercollegiate athletics during the pandemic, and they did not have confidence they could provide a safe environment to play football. Now, I would guess, that they've seen other NCAA institutions protocols, they feel much more confident in their ability to provide a safe playing environment.

Availability of testing and vaccines.

4 WBB have now opted out: Duke, UVa, SMU and San Jose State

I think that schools see a $$$ issue of non-rev sports playing during the crisis.

No school has a precedent nor playbook for dealing with pandemics, history will show that IMO there was not 'right' choice for all schools

(01-16-2021 09:58 AM)HeadsetGuy Wrote:  4 WBB have now opted out: Duke, UVa, SMU and San Jose State

I think that schools see a $$$ issue of non-rev sports playing during the crisis.

No school has a precedent nor playbook for dealing with pandemics, history will show that IMO there was not 'right' choice for all schools

But oddly enough, not the men’s teams. If it’s about health safety, they should both be shut down.

(01-16-2021 09:58 AM)HeadsetGuy Wrote:  No school has a precedent nor playbook for dealing with pandemics, history will show that IMO there was not 'right' choice for all schools

This is an absolutely true and reasonable statement. ODU, just like every other school, is best positioned to decide how and to what extent it runs its athletics programs during the very real pandemic.

If only that same level of trust and respect had been given to the public generally, there might not be as much of a temptation to second guess responsible decisions by politically favored entities such as ODU.

#BasketballGrandmaLivesDon’tMatter.

That is a total cheap shot. Yet it is exactly the same crap argument that has been freely thrown at non-favored people and entities for the past ten months. Let’s not be surprised that it may not so easily disappear because things are now (D)ifferent.

Vanderbilt women now opted out. Teams struggling will have an out.

Something to ponder in my email this morning.

"I've got some potential bad news for college basketball fans this morning: There could be a season shutdown looming. Don't shoot the messenger, but that news comes from our Matt Norlander, who reported this week that recent COVID-19 rates have conference commissioners nervous over a possible stoppage of the college basketball season (as well as all other winter collegiate sports)."

Norlander: "Multiple conference commissioners and athletic directors told CBS Sports in the past week-plus that there is a growing sense of nervousness over the stability of the college basketball season ... With Joe Biden now holding office, high-ranking NCAA officials are in wait-and-see mode about monitoring case counts across the country and bracing for the possibility of federal shutdowns that could impact dozens if not hundreds of schools -- prompting a midseason pause in the process"

Joe Biden isn't shutting anything down. First, he doesn't have the power to push nationwide lockdowns. Federal land is the only place he can enforce anything. Second, it would be political suicide to attempt to force a nationwide lockdown. The reality is that politicians who used to be for lockdowns, like Cuomo, are now softening their stance and saying we need to get things opened back up. They realize there is nothing they can do to slow the spread besides the vaccine at this point, so any new measures taken to "slow the spread" will be largely symbolic like the mask mandate on federal property that President Biden just signed.

That said, the stupidity of those running universities never ceases to amaze me, so I wouldn't be totally surprised if some conferences shut it down. More likely, I think we see conferences cancel conference tournaments and just try to get through the regular season.

(01-22-2021 10:09 AM)Monarchblue Wrote:  Joe Biden isn't shutting anything down. First, he doesn't have the power to push nationwide lockdowns. Federal land is the only place he can enforce anything. Second, it would be political suicide to attempt to force a nationwide lockdown. The reality is that politicians who used to be for lockdowns, like Cuomo, are now softening their stance and saying we need to get things opened back up. They realize there is nothing they can do to slow the spread besides the vaccine at this point, so any new measures taken to "slow the spread" will be largely symbolic like the mask mandate on federal property that President Biden just signed.

That said, the stupidity of those running universities never ceases to amaze me, so I wouldn't be totally surprised if some conferences shut it down. More likely, I think we see conferences cancel conference tournaments and just try to get through the regular season.

I think the bigger news is the nervousness over the high numbers of cases and what that means in regard to running a successful season. Our own games this weekend are postponed due to the virus. Just the sheer logistics of trying to pull the season off is becoming a challenge as teams cannot play scheduled games. If we don't get a handle on things in our own house there could be several weeks of canceled or postponed games, I would guess that, that scenario would essentially put an end to our season.

We had one positive case. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say we don't "have a handle on things in our own house."

(01-22-2021 02:29 PM)ODUCoach Wrote:  We had one positive case. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say we don't "have a handle on things in our own house."

I didn't say we don't, I said "if we don't." And trust me all it takes is one positive case. I have first hand knowledge of how one case can lead to many in a very short period of time. With the amount of time these players spend together, it COULD explode easily.

Any update on our next games? Will we be able to play?

(01-25-2021 02:26 PM)BigBlueMonarch Wrote:  Any update on our next games? Will we be able to play?

I hope not. We have back to back road games at WKU on the schedule. I'd just as soon skip them.

(01-25-2021 02:42 PM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(01-25-2021 02:26 PM)BigBlueMonarch Wrote:  Any update on our next games? Will we be able to play?

I hope not. We have back to back road games at WKU on the schedule. I'd just as soon skip them.

Postponed.

I don't know when these games are expected to be made up. Should they just say cancelled at this point?

Rice WBB is out this weekend too

Teams coming back off of these extended 10 day breaks without any team activities have been absolutely dreadful. So we have that to look forward to...