The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Uncharted territory
Lots of questions, few answers as Huskies begin quarantine
So now what?
Now that UConn has at least one player who has tested positive for COVID-19, shutting down team activities for the time being, what can players and staff do to continue to improve and be ready for the scheduled start to the season on Nov. 25?
It’s hard to say, really.
To start, the rest of the team will likely be tested some time over the next couple of days. The virus normally takes a few days to manifest, so testing players, coaches and staff immediately after Thursday’s positive test
wouldn’t have made much sense.
If no one else tests positive over the next few days, it’s possible
some players could begin individual workouts. But that’s not definite, either, thanks to a variety of reasons — contact tracing, living arrangements of players, etc. There are simply no answers yet.
And if another player (or players) tests positive, that could ostensibly re-start the clock on any kind of team quarantine and push back a return to team activities.
Currently, the NCAA calls for a 14-day quarantine for any team that has a positive test. But, as Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski noted at Big East Media Day last week, “It’s not an NCAA mandate, it’s a guideline. It’s what they recommend, in concert with what the CDC recommends.”
Wojciechowski and the Golden Eagles followed that guideline after a player tested positive a little over two weeks ago, and the team recently returned to practice. UConn has not announced how long it will discontinue team activities, leaving that call up to the program’s doctors and medical professionals.
It could be 14 days. Could be less. In theory, it could be more. The Big East does not have any current COVID-19 guidelines, but the league is expected to announced them (testing protocols, etc.) next week. UConn is handling the current situation on its own.
There’s also this: According to the NCAA’s guidelines, a person who tests positive for COVID-19 does not need to quarantine or get tested again for up to 90 days, as long as they do not develop symptoms again. So, if the player that tested positive on Thursday (UConn is not releasing his name) recovers and has no problems, he likely won’t have to be tested again until February.
For now, coach Dan Hurley will likely hold team meetings via Zoom, and players will have to find ways on their own to stay engaged and continue to progress. Wojciechowski noted that his team did “a lot of mental training, a lot of mental reps, as opposed
to physical 5-on-5” during its recent quarantine.
Of course, every program is different, and Hurley will surely find his own ways to keep his team ready.
UConn would appear to be as equipped as any program in the country to handle a “shutdown,” even with the regular season approaching in less than three weeks. Most of the UConn team has been on campus since June. Javonte Brown, who had travel issues as an international student from Toronto, joined in July.
However, the Huskies didn’t get a lot of full team workouts in over the summer. They started off in two-man pods, built up to four-man and eight-man work before finally working together as a full unit some time in late-August/ early-September. Even team meetings were held via Zoom for most of the summer.
“Because of the restrictions on size of group workouts, the amount of basketballs that could be used, how close we could get to the action, there was no advantage gained in the summer from a playing or workout standpoint ,” Hurley said last week.
Still, the Huskies were a step ahead of many other programs. Providence players didn’t even return to campus until late-August, and soon afterwards had workouts ended for a while due to a campus-wide shutdown. Villanova experienced a 14-day quarantine,
just like Marquette. Many other programs didn’t have full teams together on campus until September.
“Getting our guys back on campus in the summer, I thought, was really good for our players’ mental health, really good for them emotionally,” Hurley admitted. “And, obviously, physically — to be able to get in the weight room with the strength coach, and kind of rehab some injuries.”
As of now, it’s not expected that UConn will have to cancel or postpone its slated season-opener against Central Connecticut State on Nov. 25. Of course, that could change in an instant.
The Huskies’ non-conference schedule is expected to be released next week. For now, the Huskies are slated to play CCSU and Hartford (Nov. 27) at Gampel, then play Vanderbilt in their first game of the Legends Classic on Dec. 1 at around 5 p.m. Mohegan Sun Arena. UConn would play either USC or BYU in its second game of that tournament on Dec. 3, again at Mohegan Sun. The Huskies could also face NC State on Dec. 5 at Mohegan Sun.
UConn’s Big East slate begins on Dec. 11 at home against St. John’s. The Huskies play at Georgetown on Dec. 13, at Providence on Dec. 17, host Creighton on Dec. 20 and play at DePaul on Dec. 23.
Current travel restrictions instituted by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont re
quire a 14-day quarantine for anyone traveling from another state (except Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York) to Connecticut. This won’t affect UConn, however, since a traveler who has had a negative test within 72 hours prior to their return, or at any time following their arrival in Connecticut, is exempt.
The Big East has yet to announce the 2021 portion of its schedule but could do so soon. The league has long been considering playing part of its season in some sort of isolated “bubble,” as the NBA and NHL did for their respective postseasons.
“To think we’re only university that’s gonna have COVID positive test, it’s just not realistic,” Wojciechowski said last week, prophetically. “We may find that the best bet to have a season that best resembles what we’re all used to, in a lot of ways, is a bubble.”
RIM RATTLINGS
Matt Garry, a junior walk-on, is likely out for the season after tearing the ACL and meniscus in his knee during a recent practice. Garry, a Southington product, was simply going up for a ball and landed the wrong way. It’s not known whether UConn will replace him on the roster with another walk-on, but that would appear unlikely at this point.