Kansas bigwigs David McCormack and Tristan Enaruna will miss the Big 12 tournament due to COVID-19 protocols, coach Bill Self announced on Tuesday.
Self believes that the two players will be back for the NCAA tournament, and he indicated that the rest of the list would be able to prepare for the conference tournament this week in Kansas City, Missouri. It is not clear whether any of the players tested positive for the virus.
Kansas, who won second place in the Big 12 tournament, will play the Oklahoma-Iowa State winner in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
McCormack, a 1.8m-tall junior pivot, has been one of the best artists of the season on Big 12. He averages 13.4 points and 6.1 rebounds this season, but has been dominant in the stretches to the end of the regular season. In his last 12 games of the season, McCormack averaged 15.8 points and 5.8 rebounds and shot 56.9% off the pitch.
Enaruna, a second-year striker from 6 to 8, averaged 2.8 points in 24 games off the bench.
With the two players out, expect a bigger role for great senior man Mitch Lightfoot and former college transferee Tyon Grant-Foster.
With less than two weeks until the first round of the NCAA tournament and less than a week until the teams travel to Indianapolis, programs are taking every precaution to avoid positive COVID-19 tests. The NCAA announced in January that all participants in the Tier 1 travel group – which includes student-athletes, coaches, coaches, physiotherapists, medical and equipment staff and officials – must submit seven consecutive negative COVID-19 tests before reaching Indianapolis.
Kansas avoided the long COVID-19-related breaks that impacted more than 100 teams this season, even though it ended its entire Big 12 schedule with a week left in the season.
“My guys and our entire team, they did an unbelievable job,” Self told Myron Medcalf of ESPN last week. “A lot of that is good luck, maybe luck. Our guys did a good job, putting them in a position to maybe play the percentages. … That could all change next week. Our guys put up with it very well.”