Longhorns coach Shaka Smart will be back with No. 6 Texas when he faces No. 2 Baylor on Tuesday night, having fully recovered from his fight against COVID-19.
Smart, however, said the experience was not fun – he struggled with “significant” symptoms.
“This was not a walk in the park for me, I’m not saying it was for anyone else,” said Smart on Monday, via The Associated Press. “When you go through these kinds of things, there are certainly some things going on in your mind.”
Texas never hung up after Smart tested positive
Smart lost Texas’s loss to No. 9 Oklahoma last Tuesday, as did three other players due to coronavirus protocols.
He said the team had “several positive tests” a week before he tested, and that he had trained with only two players a few days before contracting the virus.
Still, despite its struggles, Texas did not close. Their game against Kentucky was delayed, but that was due to problems with the coronavirus within the Wildcats program.
The Longhorns had only eight stock market players available for their game against Oklahoma, two more than the Big 12.
“We knew it would be difficult to wander,” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said through the Associated Press. “But we have reached the limit and continue to play.”
Smart, of course, fought the idea of having to watch that game from home.
“If you talk to most of our guys, they want to play. Doesn’t that mean there weren’t times when some of them were like, ‘Wow, this is really really weird’, and thinking about what we should be doing? ”Smart said, via The Associated Press.
“Everyone has their own rules about how to deal with this type of thing. I didn’t say that we didn’t want to play. I was not there. I think you can say it was a very, very difficult day for me. “
The latest smart to hire COVID-19
Smart is just the latest technician to contract the coronavirus this season.
He joins Tom Izzo from Michigan, Jim Boeheim from Syracuse, Fred Hoiberg from Nebraska and others. South Carolina coach Frank Martin even hired him twice.
Baylor coach Scott Drew also had just before Thanksgiving.
The country now has an average of more than 148,000 new cases of coronavirus a day, according to The New York Times – which is significantly less than the record highs that the United States recorded in early January. Texas recorded the second highest number of cases in the United States, and had almost 18,000 new cases in the past week alone.
Tuesday night’s game is the first between the two schools this season, as their first game has been postponed due to an outbreak of coronavirus within the Bears program. Although Smart is back on the team, and he said everyone should be available, it can be difficult to just go back and take down Baylor, who has yet to lose a game this season.
“I think it will be a little difficult for them, just because of some people coming back from COVID,” said Davion Mitchell, guard Baylor, via The Associated Press. “They need to recover the team’s chemistry. But it will be a good game. “
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Originally published