KU’s Bill Self hopes Big 12 Tournament can be held as currently planned in Kansas City
Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self is in favor of bringing the Big 12 Tournament to downtown Kansas City as originally and currently planned.
That’s March 10-13 in T-Mobile Center.
“I say, ‘Let’s play,’” Self said Tuesday night on his weekly Hawk Talk radio show.
“I did not feel strongly about that at all three weeks ago. I thought, ‘The way the trend is, let’s don’t risk it.’’’
Self’s current position is there’s not a lot of COVID-19 risk involved in 10 league teams spending some time in Kansas City right before the NCAA Tournament.
“They’re going to put us in a bubble in Kansas City,” Self said of all the league teams. “The teams that make the NCAA or the ones that are in contention to make the NCAA Tournament are going to stay in the bubble after even they exit the tournament and go straight from Kansas City to, the way I understand it, Indianapolis (site of the entire 2021 NCAA Tournament) where the bubble exists as well.
“And you are going to be testing daily (for COVID-19) in Kansas City because you have to have seven consecutive negative tests in order to get into the bubble in Indianapolis,” Self added.
Selection Sunday this year is March 14. The NCAA Tournament will start on March 18 with the Final Four set April 3-5. All the games in the tourney will be in the Indianapolis area.
“I personally think it may be safer being in the hotel with just your team (in KC) than it would be letting guys go back to their dormitory or their apartments,” Self said, adding, “that’s not an exact science. Anything bad can happen at any time.”
Self said in chatting with fellow league coaches, he hasn’t heard a lot of discussion about perhaps shelving the postseason conference tourney while trying to avoid COVID positives in advance of the NCAAs.
“We as coaches, some of us thought that there was going to be some serious discussion like there was a chance we wouldn’t play,” Self said. “As long as something negative doesn’t happen from this point forward I think we’re positively going to play. Now there may not be a team participate in it because of the COVID things, but I personally don’t think teams will (drop out).”
Self said he agrees with ESPN announcer Jay Bilas that it’s wrong to say teams that decide to skip their conference tourneys are “opting out.”
“When you (say) ‘opt out,’’’ Self said, “you are opting out for the season. (In this case) you would just be saying, ‘You know what? This isn’t important enough for us to play.’ I can see both points to be honest with you.”
In fact, Self said, “if we didn’t have one (Big 12 Tournament), I would not be crushed except for the fact we are not going to win the league, so I’d like to at least be able to compete for a championship.
“I think it’s kind of a league decision before you get going, saying, ‘OK guys, these are the risks. This is what’s going on. How do you want to handle this?’’’
As far as keeping players from contracting the virus in KC, Self said: “Results have shown players are not getting COVID from the competition, they are getting COVID from the activity or the contact with people within their own party or outside your party at your own school.”
He said use of Kinexon SafeZone monitoring and contact tracing has shown, “the amount of time players are in contact with an opponent within five feet or six feet, whatever it is, is so minimal compared to what you’d think it would be.
“If two big guys played 40 minutes each and are laying on each other, yes that would be more substantial but not to the point it would come even close to reaching 10 minutes or eight minutes (of close contact).
“You could contract it (virus) no question but it’s probably not as realistic as going out to dinner with somebody that’s not part of our bubble and sitting around without a mask on for an hour. I understand where everybody’s coming from. I think there are some coaches that felt like or feel like, ‘If we can’t get in all our games, let’s just make sure we play 18 games so that way we can kind of space the games with the COVID situation,’’’ Self continued.
Self thinks the Big 12 is in good shape for all teams to complete a full, 18-game regular-season schedule.
“We can play the 18 but it looks to me at this date, with the exception of maybe Baylor and Iowa State, because Baylor is going to be out five games in a row, it looks to me we will get in the games with (help of) the final week,” Self said.
Teams have a period from Feb. 28 until March 9, day before the start of the postseason tourney, to play make-up games from any games postponed during the regular season.
“Baylor’s going to have to play six games the last two weeks,” Self noted. “We’re playing three games this week so everybody in the league’s going to have to do that at some point.”
Self hopes KU’s team (13-7, 7-5 Big 12) earns an NCAA bid, because he feels, “we were pretty good in December. We were ranked third in the country. We were not a bad team. One third of the way through the season we were not a bad team. … If we get to that point we’ll be in the game to have a nice postseason run. That doesn’t guarantee winning anything. We’d definitely be a hard out.”
KU will next meet Iowa State at 6 p.m. Thursday in Allen Fieldhouse.
This story was originally published February 10, 2021 at 9:13 AM with the headline "KU’s Bill Self hopes Big 12 Tournament can be held as currently planned in Kansas City."
