Virus cancels another game
Kentucky showdown off because of outbreak in Wildcats’ program
AUSTIN — There was an emotional heaviness to Texas guard Andrew Jones on Thursday afternoon, detectable even through a fuzzy Zoom window.
Tribulation and adversity are familiar acquaintances to Jones. But the 23-yearold leukemia survivor has been rattled by the reach of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has kept No. 5 Texas operating with a skeleton crew for most of the past two weeks.
Coach Shaka Smart remains in isolation after testing positive, and an assortment of players — Greg Brown, Brock Cunningham, Royce Hamm Jr., Kamaka Hepa, Kai Jones, Courtney Ramey and Jericho Sims — have missed at least one game because of a positive test or contact tracing.
Now, No. 5 Texas (11-3, 5-2 Big 12) won’t travel to Lexington, Ky., this weekend.
That game between the Longhorns and Wildcats at Rupp Arena scheduled for Saturday as part of the SEC/ Big 12 Challenge will not be played because of COVID-19 protocols within Kentucky’s program, the Southeastern Conference announced Friday. The Wildcats have paused all activities for at least 48 hours.
Texas now has had three of its past four games canceled or postponed because of COVID-19 issues in opposing programs. But a team source confirmed the Longhorns, currently dealing with a team-wide outbreak, would not have been able to travel to Iowa State on Jan. 20 or TCU on Jan. 23 anyway because of Big 12 and team protocols.
And while the cancellation of the Longhorns’ first trip to Rupp since 2014 is another disappointment, it’s also a vivid reminder of how real Jones’ fears and concerns are. Jones, Smart and every other American athlete reside in a world where scheduled games aren’t guaranteed, one where teammates and coaches are forced to quarantine in isolation while dealing with a tenacious virus that continues to evolve.
“The scary thing about this is, every game we get a text and hopefully that text says everyone was clear, everyone was negative on their test, we’re good to go,” Smart said on Jan. 11. “And we’ve gotten a couple of texts that didn’t say that. And that’s those games earlier this season that were canceled.
“But just because you get that text five minutes before the game and it’s, ‘OK, we get to go play,’ that doesn’t guarantee everything is 100 percent safe. And that’s the complexity of this whole time period and the existential question of should we be doing a lot of the things that we’re doing. Which I’m not weighing in on, I’m just saying it’s complicated.”
Acting head coach K.T. Turner said he’s been unable to run full practices or hold five-on-five scrimmages, instead limited to film sessions and more individual training.
“It’s kind of weird,” Jones said Thursday. “Being in close contact with guys, being told that you are in contact with guys who had a virus that can easily be spread without anybody knowing or without them having symptoms, you know, it’s kind of weird. It’s uncertain, you know, kind of like an unknown feeling.”
The immuno-compromised Jones feels like he’s wading through a sea of uncertainty as the United States eclipses 25.8 million cases of COVID-19 with 433,000 resulting deaths — and counting.
“But I feel like we’re doing a pretty good job for the most part with the contact tracing and isolating guys who test positive and stuff like that,” Jones said. “So I just try to do the best I can to stay clean and stay safe. Try to limit my interaction with my teammates, which is hard to do at times, but to be healthy it’s a sacrifice I gotta make.”
Texas is scheduled to host No. 2 Baylor (15-0, 8-0) at the Erwin Center on Feb. 2 in a game with implications both for the Big 12 title race and NCAA tournament seeding. And unlike the Longhorns, the Bears were fortunate to avoid a matchup with West Virginia earlier this month before it went on a 10-day pause because of COVID-19.
Texas beat No. 14 West Virginia on the road on Jan. 9, two days before WVU suspended team activities. Since then the Longhorns have played just three games as the Big 12 deals with widescale COVID-19 issues.
But sophomore forward Kai Jones said he still believes Texas is making “pretty good decisions,” amid all this chaos.
He added: “Whenever I am in a situation where I have to maybe go out to a public place I try to think about guys outside of myself like Andrew Jones who are higher risks or coaches who have families and stuff like that. So for sure it is real, but I think the best thing we can do in this circumstance is trying to stay level-headed and try to stay positive.”