Jim Boeheim Urges Syracuse to Remove the Carrier Dome’s Mask Mandate: ‘Hopefully We Can Be Like the Rest of the Country’

Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim desperately wants to see the Carrier Dome remove its mask mandate and he wants it done now.

Following Syracuse’s overtime victory against Georgia Tech Monday night, Boeheim ranted to reporters about the “crazy” mask requirement for ‘Cuse fans and called for it to be dropped before the team’s next home game against Duke.

“Hopefully we can be like the rest of the country and come in here without masks Saturday. But I guess we just can’t do that,” Boeheim said. “The whole country, all the students here wear masks to class then they go downtown, they go down to party and have no masks. There’s 400 people in a party. It’s crazy.”

Currently, fans who enter the Carrier Dome, which is owned by Syracuse University, are required to show a vaccine card or negative Covid test and must wear a mask. Unless they’re eating or drinking, which occurs a lot at college basketball games where beer is sold. The mandate for Syracuse basketball games remains in effect, despite New York dropping its indoor mask requirement on Feb. 9.

This season, Syracuse has averaged 18,955 fans across 14 home games on campus, but Duke expects to be a bigger draw. The last time Duke traveled to Syracuse for a men’s basketball game was Feb. 1, 2020, when 31,458 fans packed the Dome.