How major news at the ACC tournament will impact Louisville basketball.
The Louisville basketball program’s conference tournament season came and went just like that on Wednesday night as the Cards fell 70-56 to Duke. That loss could sting even more following some unfortunate news from Greensboro and the ACC Tournament.
This is the type of irony you can’t make up. One year to the day that the ACC cancelled the 2020 conference tournament due to the unknown of COVID-19, all eyes once again are looking at the conference.
Following their win against the Cards, Duke was set to face #2 seed Florida State in the quarterfinals. That will no longer happen after Jeff Goodman of Stadium, reported that the program received word of a positive test.
A forfeit now moves Florida State into the semi-finals and likely ends Duke’s season. The positive tests raise major red flags for the Louisville basketball program, having competed on the same floor less than 18 hours prior. While there’s been little-to-no direct correlation of COVID spreading due to athletic activity, you have to worry about what could come for the Cards.
The 2020-21 season has been anything but normal due to the pandemic and the multiple pauses that the program has had. Missing 14+ days of the season on two separate occasions, no one in the ACC has been hit harder than Louisville.
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After being bounced from the ACC Tournament by Duke, coaches, players, and fans alike will now wait to see if more positive tests show for the Cards. There’s never a good time for positive tests or fear of the virus spreading, that almost goes without saying. However, to potentially be exposed to COVID just five days before Selection Sunday is a 2020-like gut punch.
Louisville’s currently projected as being one of the last four teams in with a bye according to Joe Lunardi. They’ve also been anywhere from a 10 to 12 seed in other projections. It’s all but likely they’ll be selected to participate in the tournament, which makes this the absolute worst news possible.
The First Four kicks off next Thursday (March 18th) with First Round games beginning on Friday, March 19th, and continuing on March 20th. Other dates worth knowing and keeping an eye on are the arrival dates. Per the NCAA’s guidelines, all 31 auto bids will arrive in Indianapolis Saturday or Sunday of this week. Non-automatic qualifying teams who are selected can begin arriving late Sunday night or Monday.
The NCAA is requiring 7 negative tests before arrival and considering the fact that Louisville will have faced Duke less than a week prior, there’s a chance the Cards’ arrival is delayed.
Here’s a great breakdown of the entire NCAA COVID-19 protocol.
There’s always a chance that nothing could come of Duke’s positive tests, but with the tournament so close it’s worth keeping an eye on.
**Update 3/11, 11:20AM”**
Shortly after this article was published, Louisville basketball released the following statement:
In light of today’s announcement of a positive test, subsequent quarantining, and contact tracing within the Duke men’s basketball program, the following is an update on the University of Louisville team, which faced Duke in the ACC Tournament second round last night. Test results for all UofL Tier 1 individuals following last night’s game were negative and we are confident through the ACC’s use of Kinexon digital proximity technology that we will not experience any contact tracing that would affect our team. Our group is tested daily and on a path to have the requisite consecutive days of negative tests to be able to compete in the NCAA Tournament.
Per University of Louisville basketball
