KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Big 12 was one of a few conferences this week announcing changes to its COVID-19 forfeit policy for basketball.
Specifically, any Big 12 league game that is postponed under specific COVID-19-related protocols will now be listed as a "no contest" instead of a forfeit.
The Big 12 defined that type of postponement taking place "in the event a team has less than six scholarship players and one countable coach available for a game." A school must send a form to the league office and conference opponent when aware of a potential roster limitation.
A Big 12 release stated that conference staff will "exercise best efforts" to schedule any postponed games while trying to ensure no team plays more than three games in a seven-day period over multiple weeks.
CBS Sports' Matt Norlander reported Wednesday that the Big West, ACC and Pac-12 all joined the Big 12 in changing their league-game forfeit policies in the last two days.
COVID-19 impacted Kansas men's basketball's most recent game, as a road contest at Colorado on Tuesday night was canceled because of an outbreak within the Buffaloes' program.
Talking to reporters at the team hotel after that announcement, KU coach Bill Self said he would be opposed to the Big 12 keeping its earlier forfeit policy for league contests with the new onset of COVID-19 cases related to the omicron variant. He predicted "that will change" regarding the guideline, giving those comments just before the Big 12's change of course.
"I'm not going to say positively what the policy will be, but there's no way in my opinion, that you can have that policy in conference play, with the thought that this can happen to anybody, any time like this," Self said, referring to Colorado not being able to play. "Now, you may have a situation where you try to play make-up games, and it'll be harder to do, because you don't have a week off to do so. But I think they'll still just try to squeeze in as many games as possible."
Self said Tuesday he was confident that the country would avoid complete shutdowns with omicron's rise, though he admitted college sports are likely to be affected for a while.
"Let's just face it. The (college football) championship could get paused. We'll have pauses," Self said. "But I'm hopeful that it doesn't take away our daily life patterns."
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The Wichita Eagle's Kellis Robinett contributed to this report.
