COVID forces USC men’s basketball to pause. How long remains unclear
The South Carolina men’s basketball team was supposed to play its first home game in nine months on Thursday night. Instead, positive COVID-19 tests within the program have forced the Gamecocks to pause all team activities.
USC canceled its Thursday home game against Wofford, and more games could be in jeopardy.
The Gamecocks announced Tuesday night that individuals within the program tested positive for COVID-19. The school did not specify who tested positive or whether they were players, coaches or members of the support staff. “Those individuals who tested positive” and “the rest of the team” were scheduled for retests Wednesday, according to a school statement.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the school had not released information on the status of those tests or what kind of impact they could have on USC’s near-future team activities or games.
Head coach Frank Martin said on his “Carolina Calls” radio show Wednesday night that the Gamecocks remain in limbo as they wait for next steps.
“We all got tested again today,” Martin said “We all will get tested again tomorrow. And some of those results will confirm or determine the future. And so the one thing that is in stone is that we couldn’t practice today. We cannot play a game tomorrow. And more than likely we will not be able to practice on Friday. But moving forward, we got no idea when that next day that we can reconvene and start practicing and all that. It’s still too raw to have a drop-dead day of, ‘This is when we’re doing this.’”
The team’s next scheduled game is Dec. 14 at George Washington, followed by Clemson at home on Dec. 19. After those games, USC only has one game remaining — Dec. 23 against South Carolina State — before SEC play is scheduled to begin Dec. 29 at Kentucky.
Thursday marks the second time South Carolina has had to cancel a game due to COVID-19 concerns. The Gamecocks canceled their Nov. 25 exhibition match and original home opener against Coker due to a delay in the delivery of Coker’s test results.
The Gamecocks have also faced opponents that were touched by the coronavirus. In the Gamecocks’ loss to Houston on Dec. 5, neither Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson nor assistant coach Kellen Sampson could attend the game due to contact-tracing protocols.
Multiple teams in the SEC have seen their seasons stalled by the pandemic. Mississippi announced Nov. 23 that it would cancel its first four games of the season after head coach Kermit Davis and others with the team tested positive. The Rebels will play their first game of the season Thursday. Tennessee, which canceled four games due to similar issues, played its first game of the season Tuesday.
Per SEC guidelines, players who test positive for COVID-19 must isolate for at least 10 days, then begin a four-day re-acclimation period to avoid cardiac complications associated with the virus. Without yet knowing how widespread the virus is within the program, it is unclear how long the Gamecocks could be sidelined. In addition to retests, SEC teams use digital trackers to aid with contact tracing.
Martin, who said he was a proponent of non-conference play before the season, said on Wednesday’s radio show that he has a different opinion now.
“If I could hit rewind and revisit, I would have said, ‘Let’s just play conference games,’” Martin said. “And let’s deal with that, so we have all the same testing protocols and know we could regulate the opponent and minimize travel.”
Martin tested positive for COVID-19 himself back in May and said that he prays that everyone affected by the virus doesn’t get “hit hard.” Throughout the last few weeks, Martin has said that he views every opportunity to play a game this year as a victory in itself. And in his most recent press conference, on Tuesday, he expressed concern with the rigors of playing a season during a pandemic.
“This year, it’s not easy, man,” Martin said Tuesday. “Mental health for these kids is a complicated formula because they’ve got no outlet right now. If fans, media, you guys, average Joe, if you guys want to be really, really critical of me, go at it. But this is not the year to pound on the players. They’re in a place where they’re sheltered, away from their normal 18-, 19-, 20-year-old lives so they can play basketball to make everyone happy.
“This is not the year to over-judge good days and bad days. We should all celebrate the days we get to go out there and play.”
Other coaches throughout the country have raised concerns about the safety of playing during the pandemic as cases and hospitalizations rise nationally. Pittsburgh head coach Jeff Capel this week said, “Something doesn’t feel right about this right now.”
Capel’s former head coach, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, echoed Capel late Tuesday night, telling reporters, “I don’t think it feels right to anybody.”
Krzyzewski said he believed the NCAA was more “worried about the end game” than the current game, saying there was a need for updates on how many of the more than 350 college teams in Division I have paused activities.
“I would just like — just for the safety, the mental health and the physical health of our players and staff — for (the NCAA) to assess where we’re at,” Krzyzewski told reporters. “In our country today, you have 2,000 deaths a day. You have 200,000 cases, a million and a half last week.
“You have people saying that the next six weeks are going to be the worst. To me, it’s already pretty bad.”
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 5:20 PM.
