Duke loses to COVID

The Duke Blue Devils are done for the season.

The Blue Devils basketball program are out of the 2021 ACC tournament, after a player tested positive for COVID-19.

Florida State and Duke were scheduled for a quarterfinals game on

Thursday.

Duke

Athletic

Director

Kevin

White addressed how the season ended and also updated the current status of the team

Thursday morning.

“Unfortunately, after going an entire season with no positive COVID-19 tests among our men’s basketball student-athletes and coaching staff, one member of our program tested positive following Wednesday’s ACC Tournament game in Greensboro,” White said.

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski also briefly spoke on the matter Thursday morning after the news broke.

“While our season was different than any other that I can remember, I loved the 2020-21 Duke Basketball team and was honored to be their coach. We have not asked more of any team in our history, and they deserve enormous credit for handling everything like the outstanding young men they are,” said Krzyzewski. “I feel deeply for our players, who have done a terrific job all season in taking care of each other and the team.”

The Blue Devils were a long shot to make the NCAA tournament. Duke would likely had needed to advance to the ACC title game in order to have a chance at the big dance.

A win over a top-tier basketball program like Florida State, though, would have put the Blue Devils back on the bubble to make the tournament.

Instead, Duke will miss the NCAA tournament, marking the first time the Blue Devils haven’t seen postseason play since 1995.

Duke isn’t the only school that suffered this basketball season, or the only school to have surprise this season throughout the inevitable.

The parties on the campus in Durham and the correlation to the spike in COVID positive tests made national headlines.

Even though Duke University is private institution, it does not make immune to coronavirus.