We don’t know much more about the “pause” in women’s basketball than we did when the Record-Courier broke the story yesterday.
Coach Todd Starkey was asked when practice might resume at the MAC coaches’ Zoom press conference Friday. He said, as expected, all information had to come from Eric Mansfield, Kent State’s chief spokesman.
I exchanged afternoon emails with Mansfield, whom I’ve known for years. He confirmed the “pause,” as colleges seem to like to call the stoppage of team activities. He confirmed it started this week, which wasn’t had to figure out.
But he couldn’t say:
- How many — if any — players actually had COVID-19. (It’s possible players were quarantined because of exposure, though I doubt it. More on that later.)
- When practice might resume, assuming there were no further developments on the virus front.
- When games might start.
Neither Mansfield nor the Athletics Communication Department could point me to the protocol that stopped practice, nor could they tell me how many times the team was tested recently.
The involvement of top-level public relations people isn’t unusual at Kent State, which has long tried to control information on what it considers sensitive topics. And the pandemic has made everyone’s job harder.
But it seems unfair to refer questions to someone who doesn’t have the answers. It was clear to me that Mansfield, who rarely deals with sports, simply had no information besides the fact practice was suspended.
Here’s my best guess on what’s going on. It’s based on zero inside information — just 35 years at the university, 30 years of following women’s basketball, and a lifetime of reading about college sports.
- A player or players probably have the virus. On other KSU teams and at other schools, players quarantined by contact tracing simply don’t go to practice, and the team carries on as best as it can. A number of MAC coaches said Friday that they had had practices with fewer than 10 players.
- The standard pause seems to be 14 days, which would knock out Kent State’s scheduled opener Nov. 29 at Northern Kentucky. Fourteen days from Thursday (my best guess on when the pause started) would be Thursday, Dec. 3.
- It could well knock out games beyond that date. The team certainly would need some practice before it played a game. Wright State’s announced yesterday that it was canceling its first two women’s games because of COVID issues.
Kent State hasn’t announced its non-conference schedule. The date and opponent of the opening game had leaked 10 days ago.
A Dec. 9 home opener against DePaul
A notice from the Golden Flashes’ Club Friday said the home opener was scheduled to be on Wednesday, Dec. 9, against DePaul. If practice resumes Dec. 3, it’s likely that game would be played.
DePaul would be one of the best teams to visit the M.A.C. Center in recent years, though Kent State COVID policy means there won’t be any fans there to see them.
The Blue Demons won the Big East last season and ranked 15th in the final AP Poll with a 28-5 record. This year they are 19th in preseason rankings.
It’s unclear any games tentatively had been scheduled between Northern Kentucky and DePaul.
An extra player for the Flashes?
At the MAC Zoom conference, Starkey held out the possibility that Bexley Wallace, a 6-3 transfer from Penn State, could play this season.
Wallace was expected to sit out this season because of NCAA transfer rules. But many coaches have been advocating for all transfers to become eligible this season to make sure they had enough players if COVID hit teams.
The NCAA has been granting many waivers to allow immediate eligibility in the last two weeks.
In an October interview, Starkey said the team hadn’t pushed for a waiver for Wallace, giving her a year to get used to the team and the campus. KSU also didn’t really need here right away; the team has four other post players on the roster who are 6-2 or taller.
But the NCAA has since said that all winter sports athletes wouldn’t lose a year’s eligibility if they played this season. That would protect athletes if the season were cut short because of COVID.
So there’s nothing to lose by her playing this season.
Wallace was a Top 100 high school recruit out of Pickerington Central. She played sparingly at Penn State but is the kind of player who could do very well in the MAC.
Here’s link to story from KentWired’s Gina Butkovich with more details about what Starkey said at the MAC press conference.