The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Sunday that due to positive tests within the men's basketball program all of their activities- including the Milwaukee Invitational MTE that was scheduled for this weekend against Southern Miss and NDSU- have been put on pause indefinitely (presumably once there are enough personnel recovered and/or whom have not been in contact with someone who is the subject of a positive test for whatever the inactive period is (2 weeks? I don't really understand all this stuff either...😕: http://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/resocialization-collegiate-sport-developing-standards-practice-and-competition)).
While that is tough news to take in, it is worth being grateful for the fact that testing is working and preventing COVID from spreading unchecked. But as we now see very personally as fans, with this testing protocol and its inherent design to aggressively prevent spread of this contagious virus, comes huge obstacles and an inability to treat things on a "case-by-case" basis.
The fact that some can recover without any major symptoms while others can go through hell (and possibly lose their life) explains everything we need to know about why the NCAA and most smart organizations are approaching COVID so cautiously. And we are hardly the only ones- dozens of other D1 programs are sidelined by the virus right now.
This is certainly no way to play a season. Perhaps a true recovery could be sped up if we all would take the extra, annoying-but-life-saving measures that players and staff are required to.... And the vaccines are distributed far and wide and rapidly in 2021.
Oh how sweet it will be when we do not have to be playing jack-in-the-box with sports schedules anymore.
On a much more serious note- let's all hope the Panther players and staff can get 100% healthy and back on the court as soon as possible (in time for Kansas State on Dec. 8th). Things will resume. This season will be choppy. But we will make it- no matter how labyrinthian the course continues to make itself.
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