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