Duke’s season is over after positive coronavirus test ends its ACC tournament

“While our season was different than any other that I can remember, I loved the 2020-21 Duke Basketball team and was honored to be their coach,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said in a school-issued statement. “We have not asked more of any team in our history, and they deserve enormous credit for handling everything like the outstanding young men they are. I feel deeply for our players, who have done a terrific job all season in taking care of each other and the team.”

The Blue Devils defeated Boston College on Tuesday and Louisville on Wednesday, with the positive test coming after the latter game. The Eagles’ season is over, but the Cardinals are widely expected to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Under NCAA protocols for this year’s tournament, all Tier 1 travel party participants — student-athletes, coaches, trainers, physical therapists, medical and equipment staff, and officials — will have to show seven consecutive negative coronavirus tests before arriving in Indiana, where the entire tournament will be held.

Duke announced that the decision was made “following the positive COVID-19 test for a member of our program’s Tier 1 personnel after Wednesday’s game.”

Louisville announced Thursday that all of its coronavirus tests from after the Duke game came back negative and that it was confident in its ability to play in the NCAA tournament.

Duke is the second Division I team to bow out of its tournament because of a positive coronavirus test after the event had started. On Friday, Northern Iowa’s Missouri Valley quarterfinal game against Drake was canceled after a positive test among the Panthers’ program.

Between Friday and Tuesday, 102 Duke students tested positive for the coronavirus amid the school’s fraternity rush process, according to the Chronicle. Most of them “either have a known Greek affiliation and/or are first-year male students in the Class of 2024,” Duke officials wrote in an email to undergraduates.

College basketball has had a rocky season amid the coronavirus pandemic, with numerous teams halting play because of positive tests and others ending their seasons entirely. In early December, Krzyzewski expressed his unease about continuing the season, saying “I don’t think it feels right to anybody.” Nevertheless, the positive test this week was Duke’s first of the season; the Blue Devils’ players have been in a bubblelike environment since they returned to campus in early August. They have been kept separate from their classmates at either a hotel or the team’s basketball facility, where they take all of their classes remotely in a classroom that has been set up.

“I am extremely proud of [my players’] collective attitudes and effort, which could not have been stronger,” Krzyzewski said in the statement Thursday. “We are disappointed we cannot keep fighting together as a group after two outstanding days in Greensboro. This season was a challenge for every team across the country and as we have seen over and over, this global pandemic is very cruel and is not yet over. As many safeguards as we implemented, no one is immune to this.”

The ACC had instituted stringent protocols for its tournament in Greensboro, with each team occupying one floor in one of two hotels and having almost no contact with anyone outside the program except when playing games. Program members were tested daily, with results returned within an hour.