Texas Basketball: How the coronavirus could impact the NCAA Tournament

The impact of the novel coronavirus is being felt all over the place, including the possible road to the Big Dance for the Texas basketball program.

The biggest news that everyone is talking about lately has to do with the novel coronavirus and what impact it’s spread could have domestically. From volatile markets to widespread concern on airlines and airports around the world, COVID-19 is something that is inescapable wherever you go. And the Texas basketball program could be one of the multiple teams that feels its wrath during the Big 12 and/or NCAA Tournament.

With the start of the Big 12 Tournament coming later this week and the NCAA Tournament later this month, the Texas Longhorns basketball program should brace for COVID-19 to impact them in some tangible way. Other conferences have already taken precautions ahead of tournament week. The SEC is taking health precautions during their conference tournament, which is similar to that of the NBA.

Among those precautions that the SEC is taking for their conference tournament is having more hand sanitizer readily available and putting additional signing from the CDC throughout the arena in Nashville. The SEC is the first conference to really take significant listed out precautions for their tournament due to COVID-19.

According to a report from the New York Times last weekend, the NCAA is thinking about using less venues across the country during the NCAA Tournament. There is nothing confirmed there yet, but that is surely a storyline worth watching ahead of the start of the Big Dance.

At one point, there was the consideration that the NCAA Tournament would be played in front of empty arenas that never came to fruition (per NCAA announcement and NBC Sports report). Texas fans, along with the rest of any college hoops team in the country, would be confounded by what an environment like that would be like.

The Big 12 reportedly (Dallas News) will hold their conference tournament as originally planned and will continue to take precautions in mind in Kansas City before it tips off on March 11. Texas will make their Big 12 Tournament debut this year against the Texas Tech Red Raiders on March 12.

The NCAA is continuing to use an advisory panel to prepare for the Big Dance. But the advisory panel really didn’t make any tangible changes to what will happen in the NCAA Tournament yet.

This impact is starting to be felt by more than just college sports teams, though.

Four of the major professional sports leagues in the United States released a joint statement on March 9 that precautions are being heightened from here on out. Among those precautions for COVID-19 are closing down locker rooms from the media.

There are also events around Austin and the Forty Acres that were directly impacted by COVID-19. The annual music festival South by Southwest was canceled this year due to COVID-19 concerns. The Austin community will definitely feel the economic impact caused by the cancellation of SXSW (per Wall Street Journal report).

A recent report from Jim Vertuno of AP News on Twitter showed that the city of Austin isn’t allowing any public events with more than 2,500 people in one place (until May 1) unless it is previously approved by Austin Public Health. Mitigation plans that are sufficient would need to be in place for those events to happen.

For now, it looks like a discussed change in venue and the continued oversight of the advisory panel for the NCAA Tournament are all that will impact the Longhorns in their March Madness journey. But that could change given all that happened in the sports world of late to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Texas enters the Big 12 Tournament with a record of 19-12 (9-9 Big 12) after falling short against the Oklahoma State Cowboys on March 7 by the final score of 81-59 at home at the Frank Erwin Center. They enter the Big 12 Tournament as a four seed, taking on the five seed Texas Tech.