Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski called on college basketball to consider whether it’s best to continue playing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Another coach is now calling him out for it.
“You know, in our country today, you have 2000 deaths a day. You know, you have 200,000 cases, a million and a half last week,” Krzyzewski said. “You have people saying that the next six weeks are going to be the worst. To me, it’s already pretty bad. And on the other side of it there are these vaccines that are coming out, that people say that by the end of the month, 20 million vaccine shots will be given, especially to our health care, to the people who need it. And by the end of January or February, another 100 million. Well, should we not reassess that? You know, just see what would be best?”
Alabama’s Nate Oats had some time to address Coach K and suggested that he only wants the season to end because Duke is 2-2- on the young season.
Via SI:
“Here’s my deal on it, we would have a lot more problems if we weren’t playing games. Here’s the other thing, if COVID is so bad — look I’m trying to do my best to keep the mask up, I’ve already had COVID so I technically don’t have to wear my mask because I’m still in the 150 days the NCAA recommends — I see other guys [coaches] who haven’t had it and they are masked down the entire game. It’s like they have a chin strap on. So if they are really worried about COVID, then you would think their mask would be up the whole game.
“We should be playing in my opinion. We should 100 percent be playing basketball. No body talks about the mental aspect. There’s a kid out of Detroit, I talked to his uncle the other day, and his cousin played for me when I was up there. He went to a high-major, then had a mental-health issue and came home because he was quarantined for weeks on end when he got there.
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“We should be playing in my opinion. We should 100 percent be playing basketball. No body talks about the mental aspect. There’s a kid out of Detroit, I talked to his uncle the other day, and his cousin played for me when I was up there. He went to a high-major, then had a mental-health issue and came home because he was quarantined for weeks on end when he got there.
“Like, what are they suppose to do? I’ve got three daughters and they need to be in school. Humans aren’t made to sit in isolation for weeks and weeks on end. We gotta be careful on how we do life, but you still have to do life. A huge part of life for these guys that I’m coaching is being in the gym playing basketball. Their mental health is in a much better spot playing basketball and the school, the SEC, the NCAA has done a really nice job in making sure we are not putting any of them in danger.
“I don’t agree with them at all.”
Krzyzewski’s comments came after an 83-68 loss to Illinois.
The five-time championship-winning coach said many players won’t be able to go home and visit family for holidays, arguing that this is a time when they should do that for their mental health.
“We’re just plowing through this,” he said.
