AZTECS MAKING PROGRESS
Team gets to have live contact drills, but it’s still not full 5-on-5
In this most bizarre and uncertain of college basketball seasons, San Diego State reached another milestone Thursday.
It had live contract drills for the first time at the JAM Center practice facility.
They were just two-on-two for 10 minutes at the start of practice and another 10 minutes at the end, but masks weren’t required (another first) and players could actually get within six feet of each other.
“It’s the first opportunity they’ve had to compete since they have been on campus,” coach Brian Dutcher said. “Usually we have them in the summer and we’re competing, then we start the fall and we’re competing. Here we are over a month into (fall semester) and it’s the first chance they’ve had to really compete against each other, even though it’s just twoon-two.
“So yeah, they were pretty excited.”
It is part of a phased-in approach to basketball practice developed by SDSU in consultation with California State University officials and the county health office. If you safely complete one step without positive COVID-19 tests, you move to the next.
If all goes well, they’ll go three-on-three on Oct. 14, the first official day of preseason practice. Then four-on-four on Oct. 16. Then five-on-five for two 20-minute segments on Oct. 19. Then practice without masks or restrictions on Oct. 26.
The season opens Nov. 25. Is that enough time? “We need enough five-onfive where our timing is good, where we’re playing together, where we can see what people do,” Dutcher said. “I mean, this season is like no other. Maybe we won’t be at peak efficiency at the start. We just won’t know that. It might take a little longer. We have veterans and they have played together, but with that being said we’re still throwing out two fifth-year seniors who haven’t played with any of the other guys and some freshmen into the mix.”
They know when and how they can practice.
They just don’t know when and who they’re going to play.
The primary scheduling hold-up is locking in a nonconference tournament, called a “multiteam event,” or MTE, in NCAA jargon. The Aztecs were slated to play in the eight-team Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu over Christmas, but
ESPN has moved that tournament and seven others to its sports complex outside Orlando with new dates and some new teams.
Arizona State, Oklahoma and Temple have all dropped out. And Central Florida reportedly has been added to the remaining field of SDSU, Saint Mary’s, Seattle, North Texas and previous host Hawaii.
They could add other teams or merge with another ESPN event moved to its Florida bubble, most likely in the first week of December. The Aztecs hope to get four games there, ideally one or two of which will be against power conference teams.
The hope is to know by the end of this week, then fill in the other five nonconference games around it. That might require moving or canceling two previously scheduled marquee games: Dec. 1 against BYU at Viejas Arena, and Dec. 10 at Arizona State.
Either way, they’ll write everything in pencil.
Said Dutcher: “I talked to a coach today who was saying: ‘Some of these games are going to get canceled. You’re going to have a game scheduled and someone is going to test positive and you’re not going to play it. Make sure you have other teams lined up in case.’
“What people have to understand is because it’s on paper doesn’t mean it’s going to be played. I just think you have to be flexible. You have to schedule what you can schedule, and if something happens have an option to pick up another game or two.”
mark.zeigler@sduniontribune.com