The 2021 NCAA Tournament is scheduled to begin on Thursday with the First Four matchups in Indianapolis. However, the college basketball world is holding its collective breath when it comes to COVID-19 protocols, and the NCAA instituted strict measures in an effort to ensure the event can happen and the organization’s member institutions can deposit the enormous check from CBS and Turner. With that in mind, most of the focus has been on teams like Virginia and Kansas, both of which are spending the week quarantining after battling COVID-19 issues in their conference tournaments. On Monday, though, word broke from Jeff Goodman of Stadium that the first, and hopefully last, COVID-19 problem in Indianapolis occurred with officials.
Goodman reports that six officials scheduled to work the tournament “have been removed” and there is one positive test, with contact tracing putting the others in the crosshairs. The six-person group includes famous officials like John Higgins and Ted Valentine, and the NCAA reportedly has only 60 officials in Indianapolis.
Stadium’s reporting indicates that the referees visited a steakhouse in Indianapolis after arriving to the hotel and finding that rooms were not prepared and food was not available. That decision caused a ripple effect, as one of the officials reportedly tested positive upon return and, due to the meal shared together, all six were ruled out due to contact tracing.
This is a familiar tale to those paying close attention to the sports world in the last 12 months, with contact tracing affecting many players, coaches and teams along the way. However, this could have wide-ranging implications, as the NCAA now has a smaller pool of referees to utilize in Indianapolis. Hopefully, this kind of issue won’t pop up again with any of the teams quarantining in their hotel rooms before taking the floor this week, but this certainly won’t assuage any lingering fears about how quickly things can spiral in the NCAA’s pseudo-bubble.