For Jason "I love the Pod, but you may have missed something"Evans

[Daddylawman]

Jason,

I'm putting this out as just a thought, not a criticism, but I figured it might be worthy of discussion with others here at the DBR. In your most recent episode (333) you discussed the non-conference schedule and your impressions on why certain schools are on there, and some you thought might/should be on there who are missing. Y'all did note that many of our noncon opponents this year are not too far away. I think that may have been deliberate and I think it may be Covid related.

We know what happened last year and we know that travel can be greatly affected by outbreaks. I'm thinking that the chance of a Fall/Winter surge has been mentioned by many experts. It is a lot easier to maneuver a game by a day or two, or change the time to accomodate travel if the visitor can take a bus rather than a plane. It wouldn't be ideal, but if there was concern about hotels, a team like App. State could get on a bus to Cameron in the morning and go home postgame without spending the night. I just think the protocols overall will be easier if schools are local.

That being said, I don't think it is something Duke would want to come out and say. I'm not sure that it needs to be out there, plus it will start conversations Duke probably doesn't want to get into as a basketball program.

[side and unrelated note: someone on the pod mentioned combining the men's and women's College World Series and implied the women would have higher viewership coupled with the men. The women averaged 1.2 million viewers and the men 775k. Now I know this was kind of a throwaway comment, but since my daughter played D1 softball I have a clear overreaction]

[knicknut]

Also, because outbreaks are likely to be geographically centered, it makes sense to play schools in the same region, which likely have a similar COVID circumstance in their communities. If we had a game next week with a school in Florida, Duke would likely be uncomfortable playing it, despite transmission not as bad in NC. But if things were bad in NC/SC, Duke and its opponent would likely be similarly impacted.

[UrinalCake]

I thought about Covid considerations as well. I suspect that has more to do with the scheduling than trying to give schools we haven’t played recently a chance at K. I also feels like incredibly weak home schedules has become the norm for the past several seasons.