More importantly, it is essential that the ladies go hardcore on the anti Covid front or they will be denied a second straight ncaa opportunity. This popped into my mind because the VB team has shut down due to covid. It would be a shame to throw the opportunity away.
Much the same as what happened with UW women hockey back in Nov/Dec with Ohio State: VB played Michigan State last weekend, Friday and Saturday, and then Michigan State reported positive tests late Wednesday or early Thursday. Shortly after, UW VB against Nebraska this weekend (a #1 vs #4 matchup) had been cancelled "out of abundance of caution", and then by the end of Thursday UW had positive tests.
In VB in the COVID era, there is no direct contact between opposing players. They don't 'switch sides' of the court between sets like they normally would, they don't shake hands before or after like they usually would - they rather comically wave to each other from opposite sides of the net. And even though they have people on the sidelines disinfecting the balls as the rotate in and out of the game, there is hand contact with the ball back-and-forth, along with sweating and high-fiving with teammates. The bench players who don't see the court during the match would have even less chance of 'contact' with the other team, but again much high-fiving with players coming off the court; it is completely engrained in VB culture, they couldn't stop it if they tried.
That they have to miss at least two weekends, particularly vs Nebraska, is a total bummer. If everything goes 'perfectly' they will get to play Northwestern having had literally no practice before the morning of the Friday match. And then they would have a mid-week match vs Minnesota, who IMO are a bigger threat than Nebraska; both Wisconsin and Minnesota were national Final Four teams last year.
As I said, much like the hockey team, nobody did anything 'wrong", just played the wrong opponent on the wrong day.
