Big East rescinds forfeit policy

Decision applied retroactively for basketball games canceled due to COVID-19 issues

The Big East Conference announced Thursday that amid a significant uptick in COVID19 cases due to the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant, it has rescinded its forfeiture policy, applied retroactively, for basketball games that have been canceled due to COVID-19 issues.

Movingforward,ifateamcan’t field at least seven scholarship players and one countable coach, the game will be canceled and the conference will attempt to reschedule it. If the game cannot be made up, it will be designated a no contest.

Under the conference’s previous policy that was enacted in November,ifateamhad“aninsufficient number of players” available, it was counted as a forfeit, a loss for the team in question and a win for its opponent. Four Big East games on the men’s side weredeemedforfeitsthepastfew weeks after COVID-19 outbreaks in the Seton Hall, Depaul and Georgetown programs. Those gamesarenownolongercounted as such, and the league office is working to reschedule them.

The Big East has now joined theacc,sec,big12andpac-12in rescinding similar forfeiture policiesascovid-19casesskyrocket andexpertsfearthesurgewillget even worse over the next month.

“We expected at this time that omicron’s impact would be hitting Connecticut, and it’s beginning to affect us right now,” Dr.ajaykumar,chiefclinicalofficer at Hartford Healthcare, said Wednesday. “I think we’re going to see continued increase in prevalence over the next several days and probably the early part of January.”

The league added that “the Big East Conference, its member institutions and the conference’s health and safety working group willcontinuetomonitorthelandscape and determine whether additional scheduling policy changes may be warranted in the future.”