COVID-19 fears
Two midwestern college basketball teams won’t travel to Seattle.
Missouri-Kansas City joined Chicago State in canceling a trip to Seattle for a regularly scheduled Western Athletic Conference men’s basketball game this week over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, the conference announced Wednesday.
UMKC was scheduled to play Seattle University on Saturday but the conference said the school canceled that trip. Chicago State announced Tuesday night it was canceling its men’s basketball road trip to Seattle and Utah Valley, and said its women’s team would not host two games against those same schools.
The cancellations are believed to be the first by a major sport in the United States due to the virus.
“While disappointed that the situation has evolved as it has, I fully respect the right of any member institution to determine what it believes to in the best interest of its student-athletes,” WAC commissioner Jeff Hurd said in a statement. “From a conference standpoint, the necessary adjustments will be made according to NCAA policy in order to bracket the conference tournament scheduled for March 11-14 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.”
The canceled games will be recorded as a “no-contest” per NCAA guidelines. The conference said it is proceeding as scheduled with all other conference events, including next week’s WAC basketball tournaments in Las Vegas.
Washington
Until just a couple of weeks ago, the only loss on Baylor’s resume had come at the hands of Washington.
Until the end of December, the Huskies and their talented group of freshmen were ranked in the bottom half of the AP Top 25.
As Washington begins it’s final road trip of the conference season this weekend at the Arizona schools, the Huskies find themselves stuck in last place in the Pac12. They are 3-13 in conference play.
Unless Washington can sweep Arizona and Arizona State and Oregon State loses its last two games, the Huskies will finish in last place a year after winning the regular-season title. So, what happened? “We haven’t pulled off games due to a lot of different kind of scenarios,” Washington coach Mike Hopkins said. “It could be lack of foul shooting one game, it could be your defense wasn’t pinpoint, it could be a great player shoots at the end of a game when guys take over . ... You can’t rush the process. We are who we are, we just got to try to get better every day.”
Memphis
Memphis’ NCAA case involving the recruitment of star basketball player James Wiseman will go through the association’s new independent investigation arm. It was created last year and is made up of investigators and decision-makers with no direct ties to NCAA member schools.