At first, Michigan Basketball Was nervous to play at Purdue on Friday night.
Not because it was a decisive road match against a team that won four games in a row and not yet lost at the Maki Arena this season.
No, the Wolverines were nervous due to the current college basketball reality.
Boilermakers announced Friday afternoon The Guardian Sasha Stefanovic has tested positive for COVID-19 He will miss the next three competitions, including Friday’s match.
Michigan learned of the news the day before, although it didn’t know who the result was positive. At that juncture, Wolverine had some hesitation about moving forward as scheduled.
Isaiah Leavers said, „Sure. In the beginning it was a lot of us. I’ll talk about me first, I’ve been against it.“
So why did Michigan take the bus, travel to West Lafayette and play Friday’s game (A. 70-53 wins for the Wolverines)?
Livers said, „Once I found out they were all going to have PCRs after that and it was only one man, he was isolated, he was away, it was fine, we can work with this.“
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„At the end of the day, we just had to trust them. We’re at a day of age where we have to only trust the coaches. Matt Pinter is a great guy, he recruited me, even Coach (Joan) Howard praised him, he was just very helpful in the situation, and he didn’t He wasn’t trying to hold back anything and trying to make someone lose or whatever. They just wanted to play basketball, just like I wanted. „
According to Pinter after the match, Stefanovic „started feeling bad on Wednesday morning“ and took two tests that both came negative. Pinter said the Boilermakers realized that Stefanovic was suffering from „a lot of symptoms“ and „they knew there was a good chance it was positive.“ They asked Stefanovi to go home and stay inside his room all day.
„Then the next day he had a positive antigen test, and then he got a positive PCR result,“ Pinter said. „So we had to wait for the second test. So it could have been Thursday. Then we knew that for sure and then we were just working on the details and obviously we released it the night before the match.“
According to Pinter, Stefanovic „did not practice at all“.
„We trained twice to know that we probably wouldn’t get it,“ Pinter said. „We didn’t know for sure but he had a lot of symptoms. We knew it would happen.“
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As the situation progressed, Painter contacted both Michigan and Ohio, which hosted the Boilermakers Tuesday night (Stefanovic played 28 minutes in the surprise win over Buckeyes). He was in close contact with Howard, and when Boilermakers discovered that Stefanovic did indeed have coronavirus, UM asked the entire Purdue team to run PCR tests, which are more accurate than antigen tests.
“Michigan wanted our entire team to take the PCR report, too, just to make sure everything was okay,” Pinter said, which we honored and I think that was a good step as well. „
At that point, Howard left it up to the Michigan players and staff. He said he spoke to every member of the program to make sure „everyone feels comfortable, not just me.“
„They all have a voice when it comes to a dangerous situation like this,“ said Howard. „They all felt comfortable to come here and play.“
As it turned out, Bordeaux Telecom had beaten players like Livres, who said the boiler makers were „transparent“.
„We wouldn’t get off the bus here, or even get off here if they weren’t totally honest and straightforward with us,“ Levers said. “And I think that’s what really motivated us to make the final decision after a workout,” You know, they’re telling the truth, they’re all undergoing their PCR tests, and they’re all tested after training, so why not, let’s play a game, they’ll miss the guy. ”But Matt Pinter, They said they were ready to go, so we were ready to go. „
Goalkeeper Ellie Brooks added, “Yeah, I thought about it. Mostly, I just want to be there for everyone on the team and respect their decision about how they feel about the situation. But for me, they were transparent, everything we didn’t know we knew, and that is. It allowed me to make my decision and everyone to make their own. That’s all you can ask for because we are playing at an uncertain time, where people are telling the truth. This is the best way to do it. It goes a long way. „
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