A Pandemic Season Poses Problems, but the Cowboys Have Been Fortunate
STILLWATER – We’re less than two weeks into the 2020-21 college basketball season and we’ve already seen a handful of games and tournaments across the country canceled due to COVID-19. We continue to see it across college football and we’ve just scratched the surface to the amount of basketball games that are going to be canceled.
Everyone knew going into the season there were going to be challenges to the season. There’s a considerable amount of few players on a college basketball roster and basketball a close contact sport. If a player were to test positive, they could potentially cause half the team to test positive and be unavailable for an extended period of games.
Since the start of the fall semester, Oklahoma State has been just about as safe as any program in the country when it comes to COVID-19 protections, and that’s across every sport. But when it comes to men’s basketball, Boynton and Co. have kept things locked down and the negative tests coming each testing period.
They had one positive test over the past week, but it hasn’t shown to be a problem to the rest of the team or the coaching staff.
However, now that the team is on the road traveling and staying in hotels for road games, the 2020-21 season certainly presents some challenges. Boynton and Co. are confident, but certainly cautious moving forward.
“Obviously, if we’re speaking from our perspective, we’ve been as fortunate as anybody,” Boynton said. “We’ve played all the games we had scheduled so far, at least on our final schedule, so we feel really, really fortunate. I don’t know how it’s going to go; honestly, I don’t even want to pretend to throw a guess out there. I do feel confident that we’ll get through; what it looks like at the end, I have no idea, but we’ll get through this because it’s good for the kids, I really believe that in all sincerity. We’ve asked these kids to sacrifice so much to not give them a chance to get this thing off the ground. Maybe you’ve got to pivot at some point and try some different things and maybe you slow down and maybe you take a break, but we’ve got to give them a chance. Psychologically, emotionally, to do something they’ve worked so hard at.”
The Cowboys are back at home this weekend as they’ll face the Oakland Golden Grizzlies out of Detroit, MI. Following that, the Cowboys will travel up to Wichita to face the Shockers of Wichita State. The way the Pokes have played to start the season with great performances from Cade Cunningham and Co. and continue to get better with each passing day, the 2020-21 season is shaping up to be a really fun. Let’s hope the Cowboys continue to be as fortunate as they have been when it comes to testing negative.