UConn hopes to be back in action Sunday
However, game at Georgetown seems highly unlikely at this point
A week ago Sunday, Dan Hurley was in the middle of a drill breaking down the game plan for Scotty Pippen, Jr. and Vanderbilt, the Huskies’ scheduled opponents two days later.
At that moment, director of basketball operations Eric Youncofski came over to whisper into Hurley’s ear that Vanderbilt wouldn’t be able to play due to COVID-19 issues.
“We quickly pivoted to a shooting drill,” Hurley recalled.
Still, Bubbleville beckoned, and on Wednesday, the Huskies arrived at Mohegan Sun Arena, all testing negative for a Thursday bout with USC. UConn beat the talented Trojans, setting up momentum for a showdown with NC State on
Saturday afternoon.
On Friday night, the Huskies met in the hallway of their Mohegan Sun hotel floor, watched scout tape of USC on a projector, the coaches framed the game for them and everyone retreated to their rooms to go to sleep.
Around midnight, Hurley got a call from Youncofski — “who continues to be the bearer of bad news,” the coach quipped — that NC State had a positive test, and that game was off, as well.
UConn bussed back to campus the following morning and had a light practice. The coaching staff frantically tried to schedule a game for Monday or Tuesday against a good opponent — Top-50 midmajors, high-majors, at home, on the road, on a neutral court — and on Sunday appeared close to making a decision.
Then, on Sunday night, a UConn player tested positive.
“It’s been a heck of a week,” Hurley said on Tuesday, his Huskies now mired in a “pause” that could be done on Sunday, or could drag on for at least another few days after that.
Hurley documented the Huskies’ recent past on Tuesday’s Zoom call, but had few answers for UConn’s immediate future. The Huskies’ slated Big East opener on Friday against St. John’s has already been postponed. A game on Sunday night at Georgetown has not yet been postponed, and while neither Hurley nor athletic director David Benedict wanted to comment specifically on the chances of that game happening, it seems almost certain not to happen.
“That’s a difficult timeline,” Hurley said. “If our first day back is Sunday, I’m not putting those guys out there in a game.”
The 14-day quarantine for close contacts of a positive test has been reduced to 10 days by the Center for Disease Control, and just seven days if the contacts
continue to test negative. But as Hurley noted, he would not want to play a game after a week without practice (players are working out individually inside the Werth Family Champions Center).
The next scheduled game is on Dec. 17 at Providence. If UConn — or at least most of the team — is able to return to practice on Sunday, that might give the Huskies sufficient time to play that game. If the quarantine extends to 10 days (or more) with more community spread among the team, the PC game would seem rather doubtful.
“It doesn’t feel like much of a season right now, at this particular moment,” Hurley said. “We will stir up that cauldron of intensity, and be ready to play the next game we can play.”
Is it possible that the Huskies could play even if one or two players test positive, as Syracuse is
doing right now?
“I don’t want to speculate on that, what’s the right way to do this or the wrong way to do this, because I haven’t had enough education on medical issues, at this juncture,” Hurley said. “It’s gonna be very, very hard to have any semblance of a season under these conditions. Or if you have a
semblance of a season, it’s gonna be very difficult to perform at a level that you feel good about when the season’s over, if this continues to go on.”
Hurley noted that, at this point, it appears UConn will only play Big East games moving forward this season, unless some sort of window opens to schedule a non
conference game. He said he feels for the fans, who were waiting with great anticipation for the Huskies’ first season back in the Big East, the students. The players are “frustrated,” he said, and the coaches “exasperated.”
“It’s challenging to keep a team engaged and prepared to play games,” Hurley admitted.
But the coach also had proper perspective on the situation.
“It’s hard to complain about the frustration of a college basketball season,” he said, “with respect to the real world problems that COVID has created medically, economically, what it’s done to families and people.”
And so, a “heck of a week” is followed by another week of testing, isolation, plenty of questions and few immediate answers.
RIM RATTLINGS
Hurley noted that the initial positive test on Sunday was a player. Later, a non-Tier 1 team personnel member also tested positive.
Once again, a pause in team activities adversely affects Akok Akok, who has rehabbed nearly all the way back from a seasonending torn Achilles last February.
“This is not a good situation for Akok,” Hurley said of the 6-foot- 9 sophomore, who last week experienced some hamstring soreness. “He’s antsy, he’s concerned. He would have been approaching 60 minutes of live this week. It’s had a debilitating effect on his return, and his recovery. And he knows it. He’s dialed- in, he looks great, but getting on the court and an important part of his return is these live reps.”