Should Duke’s positive COVID case be a sign to NCAA Tourney teams? | Yahoo Sports College Podcast

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss Duke’s exit from the ACC Tournament due to a positive COVID test, and what the atmosphere will be like for teams that make the NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis.

Video transcript

DAN WETZEL: Hey, Duke's season ended. Everyone can celebrate. Duke lost to COVID. It's the first time COVID was victorious and America celebrated. The old 16 seed came in. Coach K--

PAT FORDE: Yeah.

DAN WETZEL: --stellar record in postseason play has been ruined by COVID. COVID protocol caused Duke to knock out of the ACC Tournament. They were gonna play Florida State. They were probably gonna get housed. But if they didn't, they were probably in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

PAT FORDE: Yeah, they were 40 good minutes away today basically. They beat Florida State, I think they would have been in. And now they are out period. Season over.

And quite a little stratagem by Duke that backfired rather badly. They were commuting between Durham and Greensboro between games. They were trying to keep their team safe from COVID by staying-- they were staying in a hotel in Durham and commuting back and forth to Greensboro. Lo and behold, they're the team that tests positive. Maybe they should have stayed at the hotel in Greensboro.

DAN WETZEL: Oh, that was their trick, huh?

PETE THAMEL: This is peak 2021. We're second guessing COVID strategies.

PAT FORDE: There you are.

PETE THAMEL: Forget if they should have gone zone in the second half. They should've stayed in a different place to avoid COVID. I just know that this loss of this game is gonna end up on Pete Gaudet's record anyway, so I'm not worried about it.

[LAUGHTER]

DAN WETZEL: How about that?

PAT FORDE: What a shot.

DAN WETZEL: There'll always be an asterisk though. It's kind of a good way to lose. Here's the fear. Obviously, Duke potentially being a bubble team, all this, ACC, blah blah blah. How terrified are we this is gonna happen next week?

PAT FORDE: That's the thing for everybody, you know? I mean, if you win your conference tournament, you're still sitting there with sweaty palms, like holy cow. OK, now we've got our chance, but we've got to test negative for seven straight days to get in this tournament. So there's gonna be a little bit of tension.

And, yeah-- I mean, yes, they're gonna have four stand-in teams supposedly at the ready for the first round if somebody tests out. If a team tests out, they're gonna supposedly have those teams ready. After the first round, though, it's forfeit city if you test positive.

PETE THAMEL: Basically, it's gonna be purgatory week in Indianapolis next week. You're gonna have all these teams. Now they're gonna practice and everything like that. But it's just basically all these teams are gonna rush to Indianapolis to sit there for a week. It's a really, really bizarre dynamic if you think about it.

It's like this Sim City, but you can't go anywhere, right? You can't go to St. Elmo's. You can't go to-- there was a Noodles & Company that's gone now that I frequented there many, many, many times over the years. So it's just like you're just in these little hotel fortresses, but nobody can go anywhere. It's just really strange to me. I don't know.

PAT FORDE: Oh, it's gonna be-- if you're on a team that makes a deep run, you're going from a hotel room to a gym to a hotel room, and that's all you're doing for weeks. I mean, they don't even want people to go out and walk the streets, the players, the coaches. So, I mean, you're gonna be going crazy.

But, yeah, to your point about-- I watched Iona yesterday. Rick Pitino took down the number one seed, and they were saying on the broadcast that Pitino showed up for the MAC Tournament with tons of luggage. First of all, he likes clothes. But, secondly, he's packed for if they're going to Indianapolis.

And who knows how long they could be there. You would think one game, but Rick isn't thinking that way. So Rick is packed for a month to go on the road. That's the way these teams got to be thinking is we are leaving campus and we ain't coming back if we're going to Indy.

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