The Ivy League

 By: Rhianna Dozier 

As the basketball season approaches, Ivy League schools have just announced that they will not be participating in any winter sports for the 2020-21 season. This includes college basketball and hockey. They Ivy League made this decision official on Thursday stating that they will cancel the seasons instead of postponing them. 

The Ivy League is the first Division 1 conference to completely cancel its winter sports seasons. In addition, the Ivy League was also the first league to completely cancel fall sports as well. The league’s president and commissioners have decided that the safety of the students is more important than letting their athletes play to win.

The Ivy League had actually decided back in the summer that is was not going to allow any of its scholarship sports to play prior to the end of the winter semester. Now that March Madness and college hockey nationals are canceled, the Ivy League sees no point in hosting a season. 

Coaches and players from the Ivy League have been preparing for this decision for weeks. The schools have expressed that they don’t need the money to play and that this decision is 100% a health and safety issue. 

With COVID-19 cases spiking around the country, the Ivy League is even debating on canceling its spring sports as well. They have placed a halt on practices, ensuring that student athletes are maintaining social distances and helping to stop the spread of COVID. 

CBS had projected that Yale was going to be the best of the Ivy League bunch this season; the Bulldogs were ranked 99th in CBS Sports’ preseason projection of all 357 Division 1 men’s basketball teams. After the Ivy League announced its season cancelation, Bethune-Cookman previously announced it will sit out the 2020-21 college basketball season as well, making it a total of nine Division 1 teams who have opted out of the season.