Syracuse Basketball: ACC updates safety protocols for winter sports

Syracuse basketball (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
Syracuse basketball (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

Syracuse basketball players and their ACC peers will get tested three times a week for Covid-19 amid the pandemic.

Syracuse basketball is about two weeks from the start of its 2020-21 season, when it will host Bryant on Friday, Nov. 27, the day after Thanksgiving.

Head coach Jim Boeheim says that he’s hopeful the upcoming term will get played amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, although infection rates are soaring throughout the country, and numerous college basketball teams have paused their present activities due to positive Covid-19 tests within their programs.

Given that the 2020-21 stanza is inching closer, the Atlantic Coast Conference, through its medical advisory group, has updated its protocols for winter sports, including men’s and women’s basketball and wrestling.

ACC officials say in a press release that the medical advisory group’s updated report “specifically addresses enhanced safety standards and testing measures in basketball, wrestling and low transmission risk sports.”

As we’ve documented in the past, this medical advisory group’s members include Syracuse University’s associate athletics director for sports medicine, Brad Pike.

The group’s updated report calls for all team members, and those in close contact with these squads in men’s and women’s hoops as well as wrestling, to receive Covid-19 tests three times every week on non-consecutive days.

The ACC announcement says that one molecular test must get administered within three days of the first game in any particular week. The visiting group must have results from this test performed within three days prior to the competition before that team travels to the home squad’s site for the contest.

Additionally, a molecular or antigen test has to get administered within 48 hours of a game’s conclusion.

Boeheim, by the way, echoed some of these protocols in a Zoom call with reporters earlier this week, noting that his team – players, assistant coaches and staff members – is doing everything possible to stay safe and, hopefully, play a 27-game regular season in 2020-21.

Also per the ACC, men’s and women’s basketball officials are required to get tested three times per week, and they will have to undergo symptom and temperature checks.

Team members who leave their institution for more than three days, like during holiday breaks, have to quarantine for 24 hours when they return to their respective campuses.

They will receive a molecular test during quarantine and may return to practice if, and when, that test comes back negative. They also have to record a second negative result, either through a molecular or antigen test, prior to the first game after these breaks.

All student-athletes who test positive for Covid-19 have to “undergo a cardiac evaluation that includes an electrocardiogram, a troponin test and an echocardiogram before a phased return to exercise,” according to the ACC’s announcement.