“If you guys have any (Netflix) suggestions, like please just throw some out there. I’m about to be finished with Criminal Minds and I don’t know what else to do.” - Aliyah Boston
She’s not alone. Destiny Littleton solicited Netflix suggestions on Instagram (she went with Outer Banks. If they stay long enough, Seinfeld should be on Netflix in April.). Eniya Russell wants to play Fortnite. They are preparing to live at least the next week, and hopefully the next three weeks as virtual shut-ins in the NCAA bubble in San Antonio.
South Carolina flew out of Columbia around 9:00 am Tuesday, looking like members of a haz-mat team, wearing both masks and face shields. It took seven consecutive days of negative COVID tests just to get to this point, so nobody is taking any chances. The NCAA allows up to 34 people in a team’s travel party, which includes players, coaches, trainers, and administrators. Each team had to submit a seating chart to the NCAA to prove they are social distancing while they travel, no food or drink was allowed on the bus or plane, and the room arrangements are strict, with no chance to pay someone a visit and say hello, even a teammate.
All of the automatic qualifiers were scheduled to arrive in San Antonio Tuesday. The at-large teams will arrive Wednesday. Not that they will ever see each other - except on the court. Arrival times have been carefully staggered so that no two teams arrive at the same time. It’s not like they’ve never seen a bubble before, but it’s an extreme version of the bubble players experienced all season, according to Dawn Staley.
“It will probably be just heightened ten times more because they don’t even want you to come out of your rooms. Everybody gets their own room,” Staley said. “For us, we’re going to do things that will hopefully get them in a place that we can have a little bit of fun with them being in their rooms, having certain things delivered to their room, set outside their room, they open it up, they’re there.”
The penalties for violating the rules are severe. Anyone who bursts the bubble could be sent home, ending their tournament. It has already happened in the men’s tournament, where six officials (including Ted Valentine, who went on TV to talk about it, obviously, because he’s TV Teddy) were sent home as a result of contact tracing after going out for dinner. The Gamecocks won’t be going out for dinner. All of their meals will be boxed meals. Frankly, it doesn’t sound like much fun, and Staley hasn’t devoted much time to discussing what to expect.
“We really haven’t talked a whole lot,” she said Monday. “We talked a lot about what are we bringing, what are we packing.”
Among the things the Gamecocks packed: eleven basketballs. Staley wants each player to have a basketball in her room to be able to “touch (...) hold (...) dribble” the ball. There will be some “exercise Zooms” to try to stay active.
“We don’t want them lying in bed for 16 hours,” Staley said. “We want them active and doing things and getting their minds right for what we’re faced with. A lot of interaction will be virtual, so we’ll look forward to that, but the bottom line is this team wants to play. They’re going to do what we’re asking them to do to play the game that they love.”
Maybe they could play virtual Trivial Pursuit via Zoom. Just remember that “Moops” is a misprint.
