Boston College men’s basketball at Wake Forest cancelled; BC forced to forfeit

Boston College’s men’s basketball game at Wake Forest, originally scheduled for Wednesday, December 22 at 6 PM, has been canceled, according to a release from BCEagles.com.

The game was canceled due to Boston College team personnel (it is unspecified as to who) being in COVID-19 protocol. Under the ACC’s pre-established COVID guidelines, this means BC is forced to forfeit the game, resulting in a league loss.

This “drops” BC to 6-6 (1-1) ACC while Wake “improves” to 12-1 (2-0 ACC).

While this result is ostensibly fair given that these protocols were agreed to in advance, I think it’s probably time for the ACC to revisit these protocols, given some changing facts from when they were first established:

-unlike last year, when teams could and were expected to take reasonable precautions to avoid COVID via social distancing, that is not really possible in today’s much more open world - meaning that players catching COVID is not really a result of a failing on their part or lack of responsibility, but rather, a sort of inevitable result of existing in a society where there is a lot of COVID

-in general, you can see that lots of teams (and places in general) are dealing with rising case rates, meaning entire seasons could be upended by forfeits.... there’s also a pretty good chance many games will come up where both teams have multiple players in COVID protocol

-almost teams are close to if not 100% vaccinated

It’s also not a stretch to imagine perverse incentives leading teams to avoid testing or revealing positive tests if a forfeit could greatly impact their postseason standing.

Be that as it may, these are the rules as they are written right now, so BC is saddled with the loss, as established via the rules put in place prior to the season. They return to action on Wednesday, December 29 at home against Florida State.