UK’s Barnhart says uncertainty will bring ‘heartburn’ for basketball fans in 2020-21
If there’s a 2020-21 college basketball season amidst the coronavirus pandemic, University of Kentucky fans should brace themselves for “heartburn,” Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart said Thursday.
Speaking to the Lexington Forum via Zoom, Barnhart addressed the possibility of changes for players, coaches, referees and fans. With so much uncertainty and the likelihood of a departure from the norm, he said questions of fairness will be raised.
“We’re just going to have to accept that there’s going to be some heartburn or some pain or whatever you want to call it,” Barnhart said. “We’re going to have to work through that to get the successes that we hope are on the other side.”
Southeastern Conference officials are working on how basketball could be played and what safety protocols fans will be asked to follow, Barnhart said, adding that protocols come from multiple sources: the government, the Center for Disease Control, schools, conferences.
“So, we’re working our way through all that . . . ,” he said. “We’re going to go to safety protocols for our fans in terms of what that would mean for us to play the sport of basketball on anything else we put in Memorial Coliseum or Rupp Arena or whatever it happens to be.”
