The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, January 27, 2021 — 17
At 9:01 p.m. on Friday night,
Chaundee Brown stood near
halfcourt, dribbling out the
waning seconds of the Michigan
men’s basketball team’s decisive
victory over Purdue in West
Lafayette.
His
teammates
danced on the sidelines behind
him, serenading themselves with
a chorus of cheers and high-fives.
The final buzzer blared. Players
and coaches bounced diagonally
across the court, faces clad in
smiles and disappeared one-by-
one up the tunnel.
We don’t know when we’ll see
them again.
Saturday, news broke that
all Michigan athletic teams
would enter a two-week pause,
beginning on Jan. 24, due to an
influx of positive cases of the
novel COVID-19 B.1.1.7 variant
amongst
several
Michigan
programs. At a minimum, the
men’s basketball team will miss
four games — against Penn State,
Indiana,
Northwestern
and
Michigan State. It could miss
more.
“We all just tell each other
you gotta be grateful for every
game we play because you
never know, the next game can
get canceled,” senior forward
Isaiah Livers said on Dec.
9, following Michigan’s win
over Toledo. “Last year, the
tournament stuff got taken
away from us, so we just try
to be grateful for each day. Be
blessed, wake up, be excited to
come to practice, be excited to
see your brothers because that
can all go away with three or
four tests.”
The 2020-21 college basketball
season was always going to be
like this. Making it through
the schedule unscathed, with
COVID-19 continuing to ravage
the nation, would have required
a near-miracle.
Michigan now becomes the
fourth Big Ten team to go on an
extended pause, joining Penn
State, Nebraska and Michigan
State. Penn State went 18 days
between games. Nebraska has
been on hiatus since Jan. 10;
Michigan State last played Jan.
8.
Michigan’s
situation
is
unique. As of Saturday, the
men’s basketball team didn’t
have any active COVID-19 cases,
according to David Jesse of the
Detroit Free Press. Its pause is
entirely preemptive, indicative
of
heightened
concern
over
the novel B.1.1.7 strain, which
is more contagious than other
variants of the virus.
“Health is always number
one with me,” Michigan coach
Juwan Howard said on Dec.
9. “Basketball is last. And I’m
speaking health as well as
mental health. … Our guys are
doing a phenomenal job of doing
whatever they can — wearing
their
masks,
washing
their
hands, staying away from social
gatherings. They want to play
basketball. They wanted to have
a season.”
In a best-case scenario, the
Wolverines will return for their
scheduled Feb. 11 contest with
Illinois. Should that occur, 20
days will have passed since
Michigan last played a game.
The earliest the team could even
return to the court for practice is
Feb. 7.
The Wolverines previously
endured a 12-day scheduling
break
between
games
in
December,
making
a
prolonged
absence
not
entirely unprecedented. Still,
unprecedented or not, a hiatus
creates a new set of problems for
a team that hasn’t looked like it
had many.
“When you play a lot of games
in a row, I feel like you kinda get
into it a little bit,” sophomore
forward Franz Wagner said on
Dec. 23. “The practices before
the games, the way you prepare.
And now we didn’t have that
playing rhythm … that’s the
difficulty, maybe at the start of
the game we’ll see that, maybe
not. But you kinda get out of your
rhythm if you don’t play for a
couple days.”
Again, this break is markedly
different and all the more
daunting. All Michigan athletic
programs,
men’s
basketball
including, are abiding to a strict
quarantine: No drills, no weight
room sessions, no scrimmages.
The
pause
occurs
at
an
inopportune
time
for
the
Wolverines, who climbed to No.
4 in the nation in the most recent
AP Poll. They sit alone atop the
Big Ten — 1.5 games ahead of
Iowa — and have obliterated
their
opponents,
registering
double-digit victories in seven
of their last eight games. A
conference title is not outside the
realm of possibility, nor is a long
run in the NCAA Tournament,
provided it happens.
Michigan has operated with
an unspoken sense of urgency
this
season,
COVID
aside.
Five of the eight prominent
rotation players are seniors.
Additionally, Wagner seems a
good bet to enter the NBA Draft
come May. This season posed
as a final hurrah for a group
largely in the twilight of their
collegiate careers, a chance
to atone for the crushing
cancellations that truncated
last season.
COVID-19
always
ran
opposite
to
those
plans,
ominously looming as a threat to
upend them. Now, in the heart of
the season, it has.
Powerless, all Michigan can
do is wait.
The entire University of Michigan
athletic department is on lockdown.
This
comes
after
a
Michigan
Department of Health and Human
Services
recommendation
Saturday
that the University
suspend
athletic
activities as a result
of the introduction
and ongoing spread
of the newest B.1.1.7
variant of COVID-19
within the athletic
department.
The variant — first
discovered in the United Kingdom — is
estimated to be around 40-70% more
infectious than the current SARS-CoV-2
strain that is COVID-19 as we know it. It
was brought to Michigan (both the state
and university) by a Michigan athlete
traveling from the United Kingdom at
the start of the winter semester.
Now, with all athletics suspended and
the entire program subjected to a full
14-day quarantine, questions arise about
how this could have happened.
What it comes down to is exactly
what’s being done right now — two entire
weeks of isolation.
Currently, the United Kingdom is on
the CDC’s list of countries with high
risk travelers, and travel from the UK to
the United States is prohibited — with a
few exceptions. Included within those
exceptions are F-1 student visas and US
citizens returning to the states, one of
which the U-M athlete almost certainly
fell under.
Now, I’m not saying people should
not be able to return home to the United
States or that a student should not be
able to visit their family in the UK and
come back. That’s not what inherently
caused the B.1.1.7 outbreak in the athletic
department. Instead, it’s the inability to
enforce quarantining on individuals.
The CDC requires a negative COVID-
19 test result one-to-three days prior
to traveling back to the United States,
and although that is a good procedure,
it is the only enforceable step and not
impervious to the transmission of the
virus, as proven by the U-M athlete. The
CDC recommends a 14-day quarantine,
but at every level, it has no power to
actually enforce it.
A lot of the things CDC recommends
during travel can only be enforced
by the privately owned, for-profit
operating airlines who wouldn’t do
anything to discourage travel because
they’re already struggling as is. And
once a passenger lands, they can only
be regulated by state protocols, which
have a huge degree of variation from
mandatory quarantine to not even
requiring masks.
In Michigan? No travel restrictions.
No required quarantine.
At the University of Michigan, we
can assume the athletic department
requires a quarantine until a negative
PCR test after arrival. Unfortunately,
tests can come back negative despite
the person being infected with the
virus. For three to five days after being
exposed, a PCR test can still turn up
negative, meaning if a student athlete
contracted it on any part of their
journey back to Ann Arbor and tested
negative up to five days later, it is not
guaranteed they are virus-free.
But how much difference could a
full 14-day required quarantine make?
Honestly, quite a bit.
Just look at Australia, one of the
more COVID-conscious countries with
stringent policies:
“All
international
travelers
are
required to quarantine for 14 days at
the first point of entry, unless they’re
granted an exemption upon request,”
per the Australian health department.
“Quarantines
take
place
in
state-
designated facilities and fees depend
on the state, ranging from $2500 for
one adult in the Northern Territory
to $3000 for one adult in New South
Wales.”
This requires quarantine in a state
facility, meaning it is truly mandated.
And though it doesn’t account for the
entire scope of reduced cases, the
numbers speak volumes.
Per one million people, Australia has
1,128.08 cases and 35.65 deaths. The
United States has 74,868.97 cases and
1,251 deaths per one million people.
That’s 67 times the cases and 35 times
the deaths after being adjusted for
population.
Quarantining
and
other
COVID
protocols work, but we don’t have them
in the state or majority of the country.
There was never a way to prevent
the B.1.1.7 strain from coming to the
US, and Michigan for that matter, with
the current system we have in place.
It’s unfortunate it came to Ann Arbor
and is making its way through the
athletic department, but it was almost
inevitable.
Michigan
followed
all
Big
Ten
protocols and violated no federal or
state regulations, it’s just that none of
them were — or are — enough. If the
athletic department implemented its
own 14-day mandated quarantine after
the return, a system-wide pause could
have been avoided with just one athlete
taking a pause.
Now, in a last ditch effort by the
MDHHS to contain the B.1.1.7 variant,
Michigan
shut
down
the
athletic
department for 14 days.
If the right regulations were in place
and enforced, it never would have had to.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
A required quarantine period when traveling to Michigan could have prevented the
athletic pause.
One way or another, a two-week quarantine was necessary
Men’s swim and dive sends off
Spartans in dual meet win
Implications of 14-day pause
for the men’s basketball team
Before Friday night’s dual
meet against rival Michigan
State (0-1), Michigan coach Mike
Bottom lectured his team about
gladiators:
“We talked a little bit about
in the amphitheaters when they
used to battle man-on-man, the
old warrior coming in and the
new warrior coming in; the old
warrior knowing that this is his
last round, the young warrior’s
going to beat him up,” Bottom
said. “We talked about what that
warrior would have said. What
a true gladiator would have said
was ‘Give me your best.’ ”
That story played a heavy hand
in the No. 9 Michigan men’s swim
and dive team’s (2-1) final regular
season bout against the Spartans
due to Michigan State cutting
the program. During the meet,
the Wolverines concentrated on
honoring more than a century of
competition with their in-state
foe, focusing not on their 159-77
victory but rather the meaning
of the last meet against the
Spartans.
“I think anybody that looks
at the Michigan State program
over the years has got to respect
them,” Bottom said. “We’re far
beyond selfish in understanding
that we wouldn’t be where we are
without Michigan State.”
That respect took centerstage
as Michigan put its best efforts
forth for Michigan State. While
midseason dual meets can see
lighter competition, the meet
had the air of a championship
grudge match.
For a program devastated by
transfers, the Spartans came
close to victory early in races.
The thinness of their roster
showed
down
the
stretch,
though, as Michigan swimmers
took more commanding leads.
Michigan, in an effort to avoid
running up the score against an
undermanned opponent, chose
not to score many of its racers,
having them enter as exhibition
instead. The Wolverines often
only counted their victor in each
event, all of which were won by
Michigan.
“We want to make sure that
we’re playing on a level playing
field,” Bottom said. “And when
Michigan State has lost some of
their best because of the decisions
of their administration, we want
to be able to respect that.”
Winning
the
200-yard
butterfly, junior Jared Daigle
raced an event he hadn’t swam
since he was 16. Michigan
State’s Cristofer Gore pushed
for victory, coming close to
overtaking Daigle at the third
turn
but
falling
behind
in
one of Michigan State’s best
performances of the night.
Daigle also swam on the
second-place team in the 400-
yard medley relay. The team that
won that race included junior
Will Chan and freshman James
LeBuke, two swimmers who
made a significant impact in the
meet.
Winning the 50-yard freestyle
and contributing to a victory
in the 200-yard freestyle relay,
LeBuke gave a sneak peak
of Michigan’s future as the
swimmer flexed his adjustment
to American swimming.
“(LeBuke) is just getting his
feet under him right now and
learning,” Bottom said. “He’s not
a yard swimmer. From Canada,
he’s
a
meter
swimmer.
It’s
important for him to learn how to
swim in the short pool and enjoy
his time here.”
While LeBuke gave Michigan
a first glimpse at what he could
do, Chan seemed to be one of
the Wolverines’ best swimmers
overall with a victory in the 200-
yard breaststroke.
“(Chan) has already made such
a huge impact in his freshman
and sophomore years,” Daigle
said. “I think this year a lot of
our breaststrokers … are going to
have a huge breakout season.”
Michigan sophomore Danny
Berlitz made the NCAA “B”
cut in the 400-yard individual
medley, meaning he can enter
the
NCAA
Championship
once all “A” cuts are in. Other
swimmers came within striking
distance of the cuts in their
own races, including freshman
Wyatt Davis and LeBuke.
The Wolverines may have
vanquished the Spartans in the
arena, but like the gladiators
Bottom referenced, that did not
affect their respect for their
foes.
“I know all these last meets,
everything they go to — their
last home meet, their last away
meet, their last time in the
University of Michigan pool —
it’s special for them,” Daigle
said. “And it’s special for all the
teams that came before them.”
Members of the Michigan
team threw their full support
behind their visiting rivals,
chanting “Go green, go white”
across the pool to close out the
meet. The Spartans also brought
masks emblazoned with “Save
our Sport” for the Wolverines to
wear.
“We
told
them
to
keep
fighting at the end,” Daigle said.
“We know they will.”
With its third meet under
its belt, Michigan made key
steps in its ability to hold leads.
While the end to the in-state
rivalry brings intense feelings of
sorrow, the Wolverines seemed
to leave it all in the pool for the
Spartans.
CONNOR EAREGOOD
Daily Sports Writer
JARED GREENSPAN
Daily Sports Writer
BECCA MAHON/Daily
Junior Jared Daigle won the 200-yard butterfly and came in second on
the 400-yard relay team.
JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily
The Michigan men’s basketball team had won seven of its last eight
games prior to the shutdown by double figures.
NICK
STOLL