‘Low even for the NCAA’: Reactions to NCAA’s decision to oust NC State from College World Series

Much of the Wolfpack was asleep on the east coast when NC State baseball’s season came to a bitter end at 2:10 a.m ET, following an already disheartening day in Omaha.

The NCAA announced early Saturday morning the 1 p.m. College World Series game between Vanderbilt and NC State would be ruled a no-contest due to COVID-19 protocols.

“The NCAA and the committee regret that NC State’s student-athletes and coaching staff will not be able to continue in the championship in which they earned the right to participate,” the NCAA said in a statement.

Former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho shared his distaste for the decision to make an announcement at the time the NCAA did.

“The #NCAA declaring NC State unable to play thus advancing Vanderbilt to the #CWS finals, is trash. Doing so at 2:15am on the east coast is low even for the NCAA,” he tweeted.

The announcement comes after Vanderbilt defeated shorthanded NC State 3-1, who played Friday with nine position players and four pitchers — all the Wolfpack had available.

“This team was one win away from its first-ever trip to the Finals,” D1Baseball co-editor Aaron Fitt tweeted. “To have it end with a “no contest” is just excruciating.”

The cancellation of NC State’s baseball season brings sour memories of past NCAA Championship runs cut short due to COVID-19 in the past year — VCU men’s basketball and Notre Dame hockey to name a few.

According to D1Baseball.com, two NC State players, who were not vaccinated, tested positive for COVID-19 this week. Per COVID-19 protocol, the entire roster was tested and four came back positive. These four positive tests were from vaccinated individuals present in the dugout Friday.

Following Friday night’s game, NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent said it wasn’t his place to tell his players to get vaccinated.

“My job is to teach them baseball, make sure they get an education and keep them on the right track forward,” Avent said. “But I don’t try to indoctrinate my kids with my values or my opinions. Obviously, we talk about a lot of things, but these are young men that can make their own decisions. And that’s what they did.”

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North Carolina State head coach Elliott Avent talks with others in the dugout during a COVID-19 protocol delay before playing against Vanderbilt during a baseball game in the College World Series, Friday, June 25, 2021, at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/Rebecca S. Gratz)

After the NCAA dropped its decision early Saturday morning, Mississippi State’s Tanner Allen tweeted his sympathy for the Wolfpack, shortly after the Bulldogs fell 8-5 to Texas on Friday.

“I can’t even imagine what they are going through right now. Worked their whole lives for a chance at a National Championship and in a blink of an eye it’s gone,” Allen tweeted. “Has to be the most helpless feeling in the world!”

CBS Sports analyst Danny Kanell mirrored Allen’s sentiment.

“Players who had one season canceled already- now a magical run canceled. Ripped out of their grasp by something out of their control. Gutted,” he said.

Furthermore, WBIR-TV reporter David Schiele thought of how the Wolfpack would feel when they woke up.

“The news they’re going to wake up to…smh. Wow,” he said.

The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach called the situation embarrassing on the NCAA’s part.

“The NCAA owes everybody involved in this embarrassing and disappointing ordeal much more of an explanation than this,” she said.

She added, “The same thing happened with VCU at March Madness. The NCAA was silent about what happened and what triggered the no-contest. It is their policy and they are the ones working with local health departments. Explain it. It’s not a HIPAA violation to explain what happened.”

On the other side, WFLA political reporter Evan Donovan said NC State’s outcome in the College World Series was “tragically avoidable.”

Kanell later tweeted at the NCAA, criticizing its game-day protocol.

“You won’t let NC State players continue to play but you’ll allow 23,000 untested, unvaccinated, and potential unmasked fans attend??? What about player safety? Oh wait…that’s not truly what your protocols are about are they?” he said.

With NC State ruled out of the College World Series, Vanderbilt advanced to the final and will play either Texas or Virginia following Saturday’s winner-take-all game.

Daniella Medina is a digital producer for the USA TODAY Network. Follow her on Twitter @danimedinanews.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Reactions to NC State’s no-contest ruling in CWS due to COVID-19