Bobcats enter MAAC tourney set to repeat
At the end of practice on Wednesday, Tricia Fabbri noticed something different among her players.
She felt something that hadn’t been there all year. A renewed sense of energy.
For the first time all season, the Quinnipiac women’s basketball team was finally allowing itself to feel excited about the postseason, with Wednesday marking a week until the MAAC Tournament. All the struggles of not being able to play the 2020 tournament and all the bumps along the way in the 2021 season had finally come together to reach this point.
“It was a different energy because you almost didn’t let yourself think that you would get there because of the uncertainty of each day,” Fabbri said. “It’s all building to a great crescendo, as it should, entering its 12th month of the pandemic.”
The Bobcats (13-7 overall, 11-5 MAAC) have come out
of a season unlike any other with a deeper sense of closeness than ever as they feel ready to jump into the MAAC Tournament with the overall No. 2 seed. In Wednesday’s tournament quarterfinals, Quinnipiac will play the winner of Tuesday’s first-round game of No.7 seed Rider vs. No. 10 seed Monmouth.
Following the shutdown of the sports world last March, the Bobcats went their separate ways to quarantine with family. Players got creative in finding ways to practice and stay in shape without campus resources and while most cities had closed local basketball courts.
“When you don’t have all the accessibility clearly right at your fingertips, you take certain things for granted,” Fabbri said. “I think we all realize that during this time. So when we were able to get back together there was a real different desire and an appreciation for the everyday things and what we do have at our fingertips and to take full advantage of that. I think that desire was dripping from day one.”
Quinnipiac returned to campus in September with a new plan for the players’ living situations. In efforts to limit COVID-19 exposure, the team divided into pods and lived together on York Hill Campus.
For the first time under Fabbri, the underclassmen of the team were paired to live with the upperclassmen. Usually, the freshmen live with other first-year student-athletes from various sports. However, with campus shut down and in-person activities limited, she felt the upperclassmen could help the freshmen adapt to college life and the Quinnipiac program.
“That worked splendidly in terms of integrating and really fostering our strong culture together,” she said. “It expedited what didn’t occur usually during the summer … That was incredibly beneficial for us and something I would have never have even thought of before.”
Junior guard Mackenzie DeWees and sophomore forward Mikala Morris are roommates this year. Both said because of the mixing of classes the team has a newfound sense of closeness which has made the biggest difference this season in helping not only to be successful on the court — Morris and DeWees lead the team in points per game with 13.6 and 13.0 respectively — but also off it with being able to collectively process all that has been this season.
“Our chemistry really shows on the court,” Morris said. “Last year’s team, we were close, but I feel like this year we’ve actually gotten to bond with other people rather than who you mainly play with on the court. It’s given me a chance to bond and form relationships with girls I didn’t have strong relationships with last year.”
The new living situations have also helped the upperclassmen teach the underclassman how to prepare and play in a postseason environment, since neither the freshmen nor sophomores have played in the MAAC Tournament before due to last year’s cancellation.
In Quinnipiac’s last appearance in the MAAC Tournament in 2019, the Bobcats defeated Marist 81-51 in the championship game, marking their third consecutive year winning the tournament title. In 2020, Quinnipiac entered the tournament before it was canceled as the No. 5 seed with an overall record of 15-14.
With just days away from the chance to earn their first postseason win in two years, the Bobcats know no matter what their result is next week, the tournament holds a little more meaning this year after all they’ve been through.
“Having our season cut short last year was really hard and a tough pill to swallow,” DeWees said. “After holding up the championship trophy and getting a ring my freshman year, it just burns, you know? You really want to go back and you want to hold the title and the name and continue to be champions because we still are the champions until someone else beats us in the tournament.”
Philadelphia 76ers teammates Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons were ruled out of Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game after being flagged by coronavirus contact tracing, prompting some players to question again why the exhibition was being played during a pandemic.
The 76ers and the NBA learned of the situation with Embiid and Simmons — which stemmed from getting haircuts — on Saturday night and made the decision Sunday morning that neither could play about nine hours before the scheduled tipoff.
The game in Atlanta is going forward as scheduled.
“It’s just an unfortunate time in the world where our health and safety should be at the front of the helm,” All-Star Paul George of the Los Angeles Clippers said Sunday from Atlanta. “I personally didn’t agree with the game but, you know, it is what it is.”
A person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Embiid and Simmons have both tested negative for COVID-19, and that their barber has tested positive for it. Both players saw the barber a day or two before before flying to Atlanta, according to the person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Sunday because those details were not released publicly.
“It’s kind of messed up,” Washington All-Star Bradley Beal said. “It’s unfortunate.”
Embiid would have been a starter for Team Durant, which will be coached by Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers. Simmons would have been a reserve for Team LeBron. New Orleans’ Zion Williamson will start in Embiid’s place, the NBA said, and both teams will have 11 players on the active rosters instead of the usual 12.
Embiid and Simmons are in Atlanta, though it was not immediately clear whether they would have to remain there and quarantine or if they could leave and resume their All-Star break elsewhere.
“I would say it’s not looking great,” Rivers said Sunday morning, when asked about the situation before the final determination on the status of Embiid and Simmons was made.
It’s not a great look in any respect. A number of players — All-Star captain LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers among them — openly wondered in recent weeks why the game was being played. And Sunday’s news provided a reminder of why those concerns seemed valid.
“Obviously, I love our league and I love playing the game of basketball at the highest level and doing what I love to do,” James said. “But I just think, under the circumstances and what we’re going through still with the pandemic and everything with the season, I just thought we could have looked at it a little bit differently. … And I hate the fact that Joel and Ben will not be able to play today.”
The league and the National Basketball Players Association went ahead with plans for the game for multiple reasons, including because it will pay tribute to historically Black institutions and generate at least $3 million for scholarship funds that aid Black students.
“Throughout this pandemic, we’ve sought to find the right balance between the health and safety of our players, the community that’s involved in producing NBA basketball, and of course our fans, along with the economic interests as well of our community,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday in his annual AllStar address. “Add into that social justice issues. … Again, we feel we’ve struck the appropriate balance here, looking out for the interests of everyone involved.”
The collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players also stipulates that the game be played, and Silver has said multiple times in recent weeks that millions of fans around the globe want to see the game happen.
“I don’t want to say we didn’t have a choice, but it’s in our CBA and our CBA says there has to be an All-Star Game every year,” Beal said. “There’s a lot of language in there that can kind of get ugly if we didn’t necessarily come down and go through with the All-Star Game. There’s still guys reserved about it, I’m sure. I’m still reserved about it.”
There have been NBA 31 games this season postponed because at least one team would not have enough players eligible to play due to virus-related reasons, including positive tests and contact tracing situations.
In past cases where contact tracing has detected an issue that was eventually confirmed as a positive case, players have typically had to sit for a week. That means Embiid and Simmons potentially could miss at least two games; Philadelphia, which has the best record in the Eastern Conference, opens its second-half schedule with games at Chicago on Thursday and at Washington on Friday.
No other All-Stars or members of the 76ers’ coaching staff in Atlanta were affected, because they “were not exposed to the individual in Philadelphia,” the NBA said.