RALEIGH, N.C. — A day after Mike Krzyzewski questioned whether college basketball was doing the right thing, Duke dropped the remaining three games on its nonconference schedule. Earlier this week, Boston College announced it would decline the bowl invitation it earned with a solid season under first-year head coach Jeff Hafley, abruptly ending its football season.
Those schools reached what you might call a crisis of conscience, one Krzyzewski publicly wrangled with after Tuesday’s loss to Illinois. They each reached the point where they had to ask, as Krzyzewski did: How comfortable are we playing intercollegiate athletics amid the coronavirus pandemic?
For Boston College, it was time to acknowledge a season well played and move on at the end of a long, unusually grueling season. For Duke, it was decided that ACC games were worth playing, but nonconference games were not, even for a team that desperately needed the confidence boost and experience the three games would provide.
Some schools might follow their lead, especially teams headed to one of the few low-level bowl games that will even end up being played. But these two schools have also been far ahead of the class in managing COVID-19 on their campuses; their decision to mildly deprioritize sports in this moment in an attempt to best serve their athletes is entirely in keeping with their approach to the virus.
Everyone else seems inclined to play on, even as games continue to be canceled, the Big Ten and ACC both cook the books to get the football championship games they want and more than 35 basketball programs are currently in a coronavirus pause, including N.C. State and Wake Forest. Another two dozen still have yet to play their first game.
Duke and Boston College, for the moment, stand more or less alone.
While Krzyzewski’s comments were the subject of mockery by Alabama coach Nate Oats, among others, this isn’t out of line with anything he has said or Duke has done. He was one of the coaches pushing the idea of an all-inclusive NCAA Tournament as a way to avoid playing nonconference games and wanted the start of the season pushed back to January.
And while Duke may be 2-2 after losing two nonconference games at home for the first time in almost 40 years (albeit against two of the best teams in the country), Duke was 25-6 last March when university president Vincent Price decided to shut down athletics entirely. Duke doesn’t give up a shot at the ACC title and potentially a Final Four appearance or national title without Krzyzewski’s tacit approval.
Duke’s decision then pulled the plug on the ACC tournament when Commissioner John Swofford would not and, by extension, the NCAA tournament, since Duke athletic director Kevin White was serving as chairman of the basketball committee. Duke’s decision now doesn’t have the same inherent ramifications, and probably won’t have the same spillover effect in basketball.
Boston College, though, certainly won’t be the last football team to say enough is enough. The appeal of staying on an empty campus to practice for a month ahead of a bowl game played in an empty stadium with no boosters to shmooze is going to be limited at best, and that’s if those games are even played.
Four of the ACC’s 10 guaranteed bowl berths have already evaporated, including what was supposed to be the inaugural Fenway Bowl in Boston, but they might run out of ACC teams before ACC bowl berths.
Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall has already asked whether the Cavaliers might not be better off ending their season against rival Virginia Tech on Saturday; while everyone’s bowl-eligible this year, teams at .500 and below — like Boston College and Virginia — may well decide to stay home rather than visit the far reaches of the bowl spectrum. North Carolina and N.C. State have earned their prime-time rewards. What, exactly, would 5-3 Wake Forest get out of a trip to the Gasparilla Bowl?
Everyone is seeking their own balance between principles and pragmatism. Duke and Boston College have found theirs, but for now, they remain the outliers.
