{"id":202061,"date":"2021-03-14T23:53:22","date_gmt":"2021-03-14T20:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-ncaa-plans-to-pull-off-complex-march-madness-2021\/"},"modified":"2021-03-14T23:53:22","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T20:53:22","slug":"how-ncaa-plans-to-pull-off-complex-march-madness-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-ncaa-plans-to-pull-off-complex-march-madness-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"#How NCAA plans to pull off ‘complex’ March Madness 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#How NCAA plans to pull off ‘complex’ March Madness 2021<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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The NCAA saw no other option. No way around it. The preference was a traditional tournament with 14 different sites across the country and fans filling up arenas.<\/p>\n

But the COVID-19 pandemic doesn\u2019t do traditional. It doesn\u2019t care about history. It forced the governing body\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

The NCAA saw how well one singular site worked for the NBA. It followed the other professional sports\u2019 success and failures. It became clear by October there was only way to have an NCAA Tournament: in one specific city.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a logistical challenge, but I think it is necessary one to do it in a safe and responsible and successful way,\u201d Dan Gavitt, the NCAA senior vice president of basketball, told The Post in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t merely a challenge. It\u2019s a completely new endeavor for everyone involved. Sixty-eight teams will descend on Indianapolis for March Madness, 68 teams with 34-member travel<\/a>ing parties all with two goals: to be the last team standing and avoid any issues with the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou stop to think about it, the NCAA has never been in this situation, and certainly we\u2019ve never been in this situation,\u201d said Rick Fuson, chairman of the Indiana Sports Corp Board of Directors and Pacers Sports & Entertainment president and CEO. \u201cNo other city in the country has been in this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NCAA has created a pseudo-bubble it has dubbed a \u201ccontrolled environment.\u201d It includes four hotels \u2014 the JW Marriott, Hyatt, Marriott, and Westin Hotel \u2014 where the teams will stay, the 566,000 square-foot Indiana Convention Center and a connecting skywalk. Every individual will get his or her own hotel room. Players, masked and social<\/a>ly distanced, will be able to walk freely in those areas. Aside from limited hotel workers who will have minimal contact with them, everyone in the \u201ccontrolled environment\u201d will be \u201cTier-1\u201d individuals getting tested daily. So will the bus drivers taking players to each site. The players themselves will wear tracking devices that keep tabs on who they are in close proximity to in order to aid contract tracing in case of a positive test.<\/p>\n

Game<\/a>s, with up to 25 percent capacity, will be played in six different venues: Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indiana Farmers Coliseum, Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Lucas Oil Stadium, Mackey Arena and Assembly Hall. Only the latter two are not located within Indianapolis, but neither further than 70 miles out of the city. Lucas Oil Stadium, the pre-pandemic site of the Final Four, will host contests on two different courts, although not at the same time. The Indiana Convention Center will have 12 different practice courts and spaced-out meeting rooms for study hall or film sessions.<\/p>\n

In any other tournament year, teams would practice at the site of their games and be free to practice again privately at another location. That is not possible this year. Practice times will be detailed and tightly scheduled for safety and protocol reasons. They will run from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily until the tournament is trimmed from 68 to 16 teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a complex first week, for certain,\u201d Gavitt said.<\/p>\n

Everyone in a team\u2019s traveling party needs to have seven consecutive days of negative tests before arriving in Indianapolis. Those who test positive cannot come until cleared at the medical level. But that wouldn\u2019t preclude their teams from making the trip.<\/p>\n
\"March
March Madness 2021 will take place entirely in Indianapolis because of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/figcaption>
Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Teams began arriving in Indianapolis on Saturday night, flying socially distanced with N95 masks and goggles, without food or drinks being served. Others flew in Sunday with the rest landing Monday.<\/p>\n

Once in town, they get tested and then quarantine for 24 hours and get tested again. Assuming the tests come back negative, teams can then begin preparing for their first games. From there, every player, coach, staff member and person in the traveling party will get tested daily.<\/p>\n

The NCAA understands the potential pratfalls that loom. Positive tests knocking out multiple players. No-show contests enabling teams to advance. The virus creating chaos and ruining a tournament fans have looked forward to for two calendar years. Up until 6 p.m. on Tuesday, if a team records a slew of positive tests it can be replaced by a program left out of the original field of 68. They will not be reseeded.<\/p>\n

The NCAA feels strongly that there will be no forfeit winners. It will allow teams to play as long as they have five healthy and eligible players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t think that it\u2019s a high likelihood of that possibility,\u201d Gavitt said. \u201cIf teams follow the medical protocols carefully and mask and maintain distancing, the possibility of multiple positives and contact tracing that can knock out multiple student athletes, or God forbid an entire team, we think the risk of that is quite low.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remain very confident, but respectfully so. I am very clear-eyed on what the challenges are ahead of us. But I think we have a very solid plan and I remain highly confident we will have a successful tournament. But I\u2019m respectful of the ongoing daily challenges of it and I am losing sleep over the many details.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indianapolis made perfect sense as the host for the tournament. The NCAA headquarters is there and the city had the facilities to house such a huge undertaking. The city successfully hosted several large youth sports events in recent months and the FIBA AmeriCup Qualifying and USA Gymnastics Winter Cup event in a bubble.<\/p>\n

So it is prepared \u2014 kind of.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sort of like doing the moon landing simulator and landing on the moon,\u201d said Leonard Hoops, the president and CEO of Visit Indy. \u201cIt\u2019s two different things, but we feel confident in everything we\u2019ve done up to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuson said his organization has made 10,000 March Madness masks. Ryan Vaughn, the president of Indiana Sports Corp, expects up to 2,000 volunteers will be needed working 5,000 different shifts. There will be 150 different buses transporting teams. Fusion\u2019s vice chair at the Indiana Sports Corp Board of Directors, Jennifer Pope Baker, took time off from her full-time job to serve as a liaison to the NCAA.<\/p>\n

\"March
Signage for March Madness 2021 in Indianapolis on March 9, 2021.<\/figcaption>
Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYou know what her biggest project is? It\u2019s laundry \u2014 it\u2019s laundry,\u201d Fuson said. \u201cThink about doing 68 teams\u2019 laundry, whether it\u2019s practice gear, whether it\u2019s the uniforms they wear in the games, whether it\u2019s the towels or whatever else.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just one of the many logistical challenges the NCAA and Indianapolis are facing in trying to put on this once-in-a-lifetime event.<\/p>\n

This will clearly be a different type of tournament. One city. Limited crowds. No bands or cheerleaders. But there will be 68 teams and 67 games. There is a bracket. There will be a tournament and a national champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know it\u2019s a big, big job with a lot of things that need to be done quickly and be done really well in order to be successful,\u201d Vaughn said. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be awesome.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#How NCAA plans to pull off ‘complex’ March Madness 2021” The NCAA saw no other option. No way around it. The preference was a traditional tournament with 14 different sites across the country and fans filling up arenas. But the COVID-19 pandemic doesn\u2019t do traditional. It doesn\u2019t care about history. It forced the governing body\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":202062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/March-Madness-2021-Indianapolis.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[97691,75417,95874,97300,80995,96564],"class_list":["post-202061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-3-14-21","tag-indianapolis","tag-march-madness","tag-march-madness-2021","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}