Geno gets emotional lift from his players
The college basketball season is crumbling before it starts and no one can be sure if it’s best to patch and keep going, or to call it off until February and call for May Madness.
Geno Auriemma knows this much: When he told his players Monday that an asymptomatic member of the UConn women’s program — not a player or coach — had tested positive for COVID and the first two weeks of the season were lost, he had one overriding emotion.
Guilt. Auriemma understands the landscape. He knows schools are doing all they can for an NCAA Tournament because it’s essential, in some ways, to their survival. Players want to play. Coaches want to coach. Fans want to watch games. Television wants product. Universities want kids on campus for the boarding money and all that goes with it.
“Everyone has a stake in it,” Auriemma said Tuesday. “I get it.
“I don’t know what the right decisions are to make or were to make (on the grand scheme of a season). I just know what the effects of all the decisions have been. For me personally, like everyone else in America, I’m in a different state than before March. A different place.
“Our players, since that day in March when they found out there was no NCAA Tournament, have been in a different place. We’ve all tried to make it as best we can to put them in an environment that seems comfortable and safe. But I have to tell you, being in it, I have tremendous empathy for my players.”
That’s when Auriemma said he felt so guilty telling them there was no game against Quinnipiac. No games against Mississippi State and Louisville, two of the top-six-ranked teams in the nation. No Bubbleville at Mohegan Sun. The conference opener against Seton Hall will have to be resched
uled.
“They came back at me, ‘Coach, these things are out of our control. We’ll come back and we’ll be better than before.’ As far as kids being resilient, yeah, they want it so bad they understand there’s nothing we can do to prevent this and nothing we can do to avoid the consequence when it strikes,” he said.
Auriemma had a question. A question that should make us pause during this pause and think about the mental strain on young people. Scholarships, grades, almost no social life, health fears and nothing but questions about their athletic futures. It was a question considerably more important than the date and television time of the next game.
“How resilient can you be?” Auriemma asked. “I don’t know. Much more than I am. It has been a real struggle for me. As I’m sure it has been a real struggle for other coaches in the country, parents, teachers, especially healthcare workers. It has been an incredible struggle for families. Nobody has escaped this and said ‘It hasn’t affected me one bit.’
“These kids have been held hostage since the end of July. They can’t go anywhere They can’t talk to anybody. They can’t do anything (aside) from a couple of hours a day, they’re allowed out to get some recess. It’s incredible what’s happened to them. Yet they hang in there and don’t (say), ‘I’m done with this.’ They just talk about when’s our first game, when’s our next practice. At this point when I’m supposed to be giving them all the good stuff. I’m getting it from them.”
Coach, it’ll be all right. We’ll be fine. Don’t beat yourself up.
“They’re unbelievable,” Auriemma said, “beyond unbelievable.”
Before Rick Pitino talked about May Madness a few weeks ago, Auriemma had multiple conversations with athletic director Dave Benedict about starting the season Feb. 1 and running it through May. He sees Louisville coach Jeff Walz tweeting for a potential makeup opponent to play in two days. He sees men’s and women’s teams drop out one after another at Bubbleville.
“It looks bad now,” he said.
More than 40 men’s teams have either canceled seasons or are currently dealing with COVID stoppages. I’d argue to give it until Dec. 5, see how the Mohegan bubble works and then make concrete decisions on holding off to Feb. 1, conference-only games, perhaps play in as many mini-bubbles as possible.
If a perfect script could be written to protect the $1 billion NCAA Tournament, Auriemma said, February to May sounds great.
“There just isn’t a guarantee it will be any better,” Auriemma said. “We’ve done a pretty good job as a team to this point. No one was reckless. There are some behaviors that are inexcusable. You go to this big party inside a house. Or a public event and not practice social distance or any kind of protocol. Why would you do that? But there are some times when everyone is taking all the precautions and boom — you still get a positive test.
“So is there a way to keep it out? If there was, everybody would be doing it. There’s no magic. Until we have a vaccine, and everyone has been vaccinated — two separate things — I think we’re going to be struggling.”
None of his players have indicated they were interested in opting out of the season. Still, a coach who has 11 national basketball championships and ostensibly has seen everything doesn’t pretend he has seen anything like 2020. Get to the cusp of the season, test positive for some plague, call everything off for two weeks, practice a few days and resume?
“It’s not like we can say, ‘Remember what we did in 1998?’ ” Auriemma said. “We’re all flying here without any instruments. We’re going by feel.”
He talks to other coaches and there are different COVID rules in different conferences and different states and it boggles his mind. He wonders whether it’s better for his six freshmen and transfer Evina Westbrook to get a big-time test against Mississippi State and Louisville in the first week or to ease into it.
“The players are doing the best they can,” Auriemma said. “They’re putting up a good front. How many hits have they been asked to take? Especially the freshmen. Given what happened to them the end of the senior year in high school and now first year of college. Even when you get them on the court, are they all there or in some state of funk? I don’t know. Will we be prepared physically? Especially with all these young players. It’s a huge worry.”
A few glasses of fine wine will help.
“I’ve just got to make sure
I don’t get too enamored with all that,” the connoisseur said. “It’s easy to feel as a coach like it’s so uncomfortable, so out of your control because coaches are control freaks by nature. We want to have everything planned. We want everything in its place. We want a schedule for everything and now we don’t have one. That’s a very difficult place to be.
“I don’t want to single out coaches. I don’t think there’s anything more special about what we do relative to the rest of the workforce in America. I just feel like I’ve been in this state since March. Not a great place, not a bad place, I’m in a neutral space. It’s hard to get excited every day because tomorrow might be the day where you say the season is over.”
Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve — the Auriemma home is no stranger to big festive gatherings. Not this year. He says he can manage through Thanksgiving, but unless you suddenly are marrying a princess or king, nobody in the family misses Christmas Eve. Kathy Auriemma orders.
“We have 50 people at our house on Christmas going on 25 years,” Auriemma said. “This year it’s not going to happen.
“We just got off a Zoom call with the players. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we’re trying to make their Thanksgiving something other than just another day in the week. We’re working on dining scenarios. I guess it’s fortuitous I own a restaurant.”
He brought us back again to Monday when he told Paige Bueckers, Christyn Williams, players young and experienced, that the opening fortnight was lost to the pandemic.
“I told them this is where we are,” Auriemma said. “This is what we’re mandated to do. I can’t make it any better for you. I can’t make it any easier for you to go down smoother.
“I’m not going to go say, ‘Look guys, I know how you feel.’ I don’t. I’m not a player. I’m not a freshman who has been wanting to play basketball and each time they think they have it, it’s taken away from them. I’m trying to reassure them it’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Things are going to be great.”
“I’m sure there was a guy on the Titanic who was in charge of saying that. I just hope I’m not that guy.”
Gallows humor and glass of wine can help with the guilt.