2020 Season

Another schedule is out. 16 games overall with back to back games with OSU.
PSU still exhibition.

The only  non WCC road games are Corvallis and Hillsboro.
The NC schools are all from the NW.
https://portlandpilots.com/sports/womens-soccer/schedule

In an interesting development, UC Davis is no longer on the schedule.
They were originally scheduled to play UP and PSU on a road swing. Now they play PSU in Ashland, just about halfway for the two schools.
( Day trip?)

Any word on fan attendance?

A_Fan wrote:Any word on fan attendance?

The only word so far is that games may be with or without fans. And, if with fans, attendance may be limited. And, if limited, the limitations may be be based on various factors and involve various considerations. All to be decided in the future.

Thanks, UPSF. It sounds like they have the whole fan issue under control.

One of the things I was told was that students and season ticket holders would be first on the priority scale if attendance were limited, which seems rational.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:The only word so far is that games may be with or without fans.  And, if with fans, attendance may be limited.  And, if limited, the limitations may be be based on various factors and involve various considerations.  All to be decided in the future.

All true...

The athletic department expects to proceed as if it were a "normal" year with regard to marketing and game prep at Merlo, but for at least the first part of the season the games will likely be played with "essential personnel" only, i.e.  no fans.  The hope is Salem will be less restrictive later in the season and Merlo will eventually be able to accommodate 10-25% of the maximum seating capacity.

Fortunately, the plan is to still live-stream all the home games, but everyone is going to have to continually check for game dates and times because games may have to be canceled at the last minute if a player on either team tests positive for COVID-19 and the team needs to go into quarantine.    

Social distancing should be relatively easy for fans at Merlo once we are allowed in and watching a game (well, except for the Vila Drum Squad   ), but the big safety concern is fans distancing while going in and out, going to the concessions, and using the restroom(s). It is unlikely there will be a Pilot Club tent in the "normal" sense this year, but that is something that has to be worked out.

Soccer players (and volleyball players too) should be arriving on campus next week to begin their quarantine and then eventually begin practicing.

News from the PAC 12 suggests that they will only play conference games for men’s and women’s soccer games, as well as volleyball. So, that will impact our schedules and pool of potential opponents considerably.

https://pac-12.com/article/2020/07/10/pac-12-ceo-group-announces-decision-schedule-conference-only-play-several-fall

I understand the rationale (e.g., legal, financial, logistical) of making these decisions conference by conference, but if I were Oregon or Oregon State: it would seem that traveling to play UP and PSU is considerably safer at the moment than traveling to play Arizona or Arizona State. Frankly, I’m not sure that us traveling to play BYU or USD (as examples) is all that safe either.

Normal ain’t happening this year. The PAC 12 just announced fall sports will be in-conference only, which wipes out the schedule for the month of September for UP women’s soccer.

We had UW, two matches with OSU, and UO as the September schedule.

Too bad. Could have been day trip only for those four matches for all schools.

<edit> FloridaSoccer wins. Must be the time change.

Geez: great minds...

On the other hand, maybe it’s four 1-0 forfeit wins in the record books

Add to this the possibility that the Big West will join the Ivy League in not having sports at all during the Fall, which no doubt would affect a bunch of the WCC California-based teams. I can see the WCC joining the conference-only group and adding a WCC Tournament to fill out the season.

I wonder if they would think about doing a double round robin, like the men did a few years back.

The Patriot league has joined the conferences that have cancelled Fall sports.

https://patriotleague.org/news/2020/7/13/general-patriot-league-announces-decisions-surrounding-fall-sport-season.aspx


The two academies will make their own choices.
Should be fun to see how that plays out.

That has no direct impact on UP’s schedule, but the Big Sky commish has said they will make their decision by Aug 1 when football teams are scheduled to report.

The only non conference teams left on the schedule are Big Sky teams PSU(Exh) and Eastern Washington.

Geezaldinho wrote:The only non conference teams left on the schedule are Big Sky teams PSU(Exh) and Eastern Washington.

PSU Athletics wrote:PSU women's soccer has canceled an exhibition match with the University of Portland that had been scheduled for Aug. 13.

https://goviks.com/news/2020/7/13/fall-athletics-programs-have-non-conference-schedules-altered.aspx

Which leaves Eastern Washington, whose website still holds out hope, but the Big Sky might have something else to say.

And the Big East has gone conference only.

https://www.courant.com/sports/hc-sp-uconn-athletics-big-east-20200717-20200716-skdtccehbbd67l3bw6i6xxvi2a-story.html

Well , now the WCC has canceled all games until Sept 24.

https://wccsports.com/news/2020/7/16/general-wcc-statement-on-fall-competition.aspx

So that’s it.

Maybe there is hope for a conference season or tourney, but I’m not sanguine about that.

This will allow one weekend for games, before the conference season begins on October 2. Plus there is a little room for one or two more non-conference games after the conference games begin.

I suspect it's just a matter of time before the entire season for fall sports is cancelled and that this merely delays the point where that decision needs to be made.

I don't see the scenario where cases naturally go down and thus far I haven't seen the public will in areas currently affected to go into the total lockdown that was needed to get things under control in other countries or in New York when they were in similar situations. I'd like to be wrong, but I think things are going to continue to worsen in the short term.

Southern California k-12 schools are starting to announce closures until at least October. The optics of playing sports and flying players into colleges in regions where k-12 schools are closed wouldn't be good and likely unsafe for players as well.

Disclaimers: I am not a doctor or a lawyer, but I can science a bit and math a lot.

The Atlantic 10 has cancelled all fall sports except basketball. Some sports ( rowing, swimming , tennis,  golf, ) are moved to Spring.

https://www.kmov.com/sports/no-fall-sports-for-slu-as-atlantic-10-conference-postpones-sports-season/article_503f0b1c-c844-11ea-9c9c-7f416f9828d2.html


Too much money in basketball to cancel, I guess.

Basketball is not a Fall sport, it is a Winter sport.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:Basketball is not a Fall sport, it is a Winter sport.

Not really. It spans most of the school year these days. Last I checked, the winter solstice is still December 21.

UP’s season starts Nov2. The first D1 game is Nov7 for the women and Nov8 for the men. and The  practice season starts 42 days before that, or the end of September. That’s firmly in the fall semester.

We don’t even know if UP will make it through the games scheduled in the abbreviated fall semester without closing down. If what is left of fall sports doesn’t make it through until then, no way in hell they can start basketball if the pandemic is still raging.
It’s getting worse, not better.

MAYBE they try to go conference only, but I doubt they pull that off just as football is not likely to survive.

The NCAA will try to still have March Madness until the bitter end, but is that safe for student athletes?

The NCAA classifies basketball as a winter sport. This can be verified by visiting ncaa.com and taking a look at their main menu. This is likely because the majority of the season occurs during winter.

dholcombe wrote:The NCAA classifies basketball as a winter sport. This can be verified by visiting ncaa.com and taking a look at their main menu. This is likely because the majority of the season occurs during winter.

The NCAA isn’t much into the calendar business. Guys like Caius Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII  beat them to it. The Sumerians got the jump on naming seasons.

Like I said, not really. The calendar trumps any NCAA classification.  School semesters don’t count for much either. School calendar years vary by as much as two months.
The start of practice is only seven  days from official summer. Call that a winter sport if you want.

The NCAA also call the basketball final March madness and trademarked it.
In 2019 round 1 started after the first day of Spring.  the final was April 8. That’s the second week into the next month, no matter what the NCAA says.
There are only four months a year where basketball players aren’t shooting  hoops for their universities. Take away the 8 April dates and tack them onto fall, and it’s still two full seasons  and still  part of a third.

And who are we kidding? This year the NCAA has allowed basketball players to report June 1. If things went according to ncaa plans there will be only one month where basketball players aren’t playing or practicing. Next May will be the first month in a year  with no commitments.
That’s 311 days student athletes are committed to this year.

The point is the pandemic has zero chance of being over by basketball season, especially when recovery is being run by an Orange headed narcissist who thinks he can change things by burying the death count. His plan is to stop testing and drink bleach to end the problem.

Plan on a very short or no season. Expect an invitational in March for tv. And that is looking optimistic.


But thanks for the idea. I just registered  April Madness.

Right on cue, his orangeness is lobbying the republican  senate for an end to funding testing.

USF has gone online only for the fall except for critical nursing programs. There will be no on campus housing  They don’t have State clearance to open the campus

https://www.usfca.edu/news/online-learning-fall

That’s probably it for their fall sports.