MAC basketball could start in mid-Feb
Conference teams, including Albright and Alvernia, would play a conference-only season that lasts five to six weeks
The Middle Atlantic Conference presidents have voted to push the start of the men’s and women’s basketball seasons back to at least mid-February because of the rising rates of COVID-19, the conference announced Wednesday.
Tentative plans for men’s and women’s basketball are to play a conference-only season with a schedule that runs five to six weeks. The start of the men’s and women’s swimming seasons has been pushed back to at least early March.
The MAC plans to hold conference championships in those sports, but it canceled 2021 conference championships in indoor track and field and wrestling. The conference presidents, though, are allowing the member schools to schedule outside competition in indoor track and field and wrestling.
The MAC will rely on the United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) to decide about men’s and women’s ice hockey.
Albright and Alvernia are members of the MAC, which has 18 institutions in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey and which competes at the NCAA Division III level.
“I’m very grateful that the presidents have remained committed to providing a competitive experience for our student-athletes in the spring (semester),” Alvernia athletic director Bill Stiles said. “That’s been consistent. Their commitment to considering a path to providing the support and resources necessary to be able to provide a competitive experience for our student athletes is really all we could ask for on Dec. 2.”
Back in July, the MAC sus
pended all athletic competition through the fall semester and until 2021, in effect canceling the 2020 seasons for fall sports.
That followed the MAC decision in April to cancel all spring sports.
“The fact that we are planning ahead and looking for meaningful competition that hopefully culminates with some sort of conference playoff, I think, is the best we can do given the situation,” said Albright co-athletic director Janice Luck, who also is the college’s women’s basketball coach.
Practice for basketball, swimming and track and field could begin as early as January. The MAC is allowing each member school to determine that.
“We’re working with our school health officials to determine what that date would be,” Luck said. “Holidays cause concern because of family gatherings. Our students are now home until after Christmas. We’re just going to have to wait and see. Our plan is to test everyone when they return to campus.”
The start of spring sports could be pushed back, depending on the status of the coronavirus and the availability of vaccines. But it seems likely that teams will play conference-only schedules.
“We don’t know yet,” Stiles said. “In my opinion, we’re not going to play a 40-game baseball schedule or a 40-game softball schedule. I hope we remain committed to a conference championship in all of the spring sports and a path to the NCAA championships because they missed out on that (in 2020).”
The MAC is working on putting together a COVID-19 testing policy that all the schools will follow.
“Those plans are being finalized over the next few weeks with our conference office and our athletic directors,” Luck said. “We’re looking to create a conference-wide policy and procedure for testing so that we would all be testing at the same frequency and potentially the same type of tests.”