With the season only a few weeks away the Vermont team suffered their first loss. Bernie Andre, the grad transfer from Northern Arizona, left the team for personal reasons. Landing him from the transfer market was a big accomplishment for the Cats as he was a highly sought after grad transfer. I was very high on his role with the team and think he would have had a tremendous season for Vermont. The Vermont program was bound to be affected by these uncertain times at some point. This is going to put pressure on guys like Duncan Demuth and Isaiah Powell to make a leap from last season. I think Vermont is still the favorite in the league but the gap between them and UMBC has definitely shrunk. The season is going to have many moments of uncertainty still to come. Coronavirus cases are rising and the season is certainly going to be affected. Already one of Vermont's non-conference opponents, Seina, has paused their season due to positive tests within the staff and team. There are likely to be scheduling changes and postponements throughout the season. I have held off on writing a season preview because of the scheduling uncertainty and will probably continue to wait and see how many of the non-conference games actually come to fruition. I am still hopeful for some form of a season but it continues to be hard to go all in on the excitement of the season with so much up in the air.
This all feels eerily similar to last March. I say this season as currently scheduled will not happen. I like Petino's idea of "May Madness." Vaccines will be widely distributed by then and herd immunity will kick in.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It does have the same feeling as last march. The NCAA seems intent on making it happen. I think the fear with making it "May Madness" is that the vaccine distribution will take quite a while even after it is ready so banking on that is no sure thing.
DeleteMay or April Madness seems like the right call... The Mohegan Bubble would probably have been safer than anywhere else and with students not on campus, the basketball team would essentially be in quarantine. I feel as if the athletic department couldn't/wouldn't allow the men to play these three games (Mohegan Bubble) and for everyone else not to because of favoritism accusations. Thank you for the coverage.
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