BENCH POINTS
In a season of chaos, COVID crisis has had major impact on Big East women’s schedules — and no program knows that better than UConn
Following a two-week stretch full of game cancellations and postponements, the No. 4 UConn women’s basketball team will enter the third week of January having only played seven games — tied for the second-fewest of any team ranked in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll. The Huskies need six more to reach the magic number of 13, the minimum needed for NCAA Tournament consideration.
How did the Huskies get here, what’s going on in the Big East and is there anything to be done moving forward? Here’s what we know of the situation:
How did we get here?
Following an inauspicious start to the season — UConn’s first three games were canceled after a member of the program tested positive for COVID-19 the week before the season opener — the Huskies
were able to fit in five games in 12 days and then moved up their home matchup against DePaul to Dec. 29. Heading into the new year, they were nearly halfway to the 13-game mark.
Trouble started brewing after Christmas when five Big East programs experienced COVID-19-related stoppages between Dec. 28 and Jan. 5. Not only was UConn’s Jan. 13 game against Xavier wiped out, but when Baylor’s Kim Mulkey tested positive earlier that week, the Huskies’ nationally televised matchup against the Bears on Jan. 7 was also canceled.
The Huskies got in a game against Providence on Jan. 9 but then saw two more games postponed within a span of six hours.
First, Saturday’s Villanova game was scrapped after the Wildcats suspended play. Then UConn and Seton Hall postponed their Wednesday game — which had been added in light of the Xavier postponement — out of an abundance of caution since UConn had just played Providence, which needed to shut down.
Including UConn, eight Big East schools since Christmas have had some form of COVID-19 issue, causing a pause in activities or postponed games.
Where does this leave UConn?
Barring any unforeseen issues this week, the Huskies will have played two games in 27 days (from Dec. 23 to Monday) through no real fault of their own, each postponement or cancellation stemming from issues with opponents. They have continued to undergo regular testing but out of an abundance of caution did not add another game before Tuesday’s meeting against Butler.
That is clearly not ideal from a basketball standpoint.
As coach Geno Auriemma has pointed out, the team can only grow so much on the practice court, and having to stop and start so many times prevents players from getting into a flow and the team from establishing a rhythm. And given UConn’s conference slate is relatively easy, the loss of four premier nonconference matchups takes away crucial litmus tests for a young team.
There’s about seven weeks until the conference tournament takes place (assuming it occurs on time).
Is it likely that UConn can get six more games in before then? Probably.
Will it end up playing 20 Big East games in all plus two non-league ones? That seems less certain.
How does the Big East compare to other conferences?
The past 2-3 weeks have been particularly bad for the Big East, and at this point each program aside from DePaul has been forced to shut down since the beginning of the season. Some, like Seton Hall, have had to do so twice. Those pauses have led to a host of postponements that will only get tougher to reschedule.
Through Friday night, the Big East has played 28 conference games. The final regular-season games are scheduled for March 1, and the conference tournament will theoretically take place later that week — meaning the Big East has 82 more games to get in by the first week of March if each school is to maintain a full conference schedule.
It’s worth noting the Big East is doing slightly worse than other leagues in that regard.
It has completed 25% of conference games, which is better than the Big 12 (23%) but worse than the Pac-12 (35%), ACC (33%), Big Ten (29%) and the Big East men’s teams (30%). The SEC is also at 25% but started conference play a few weeks later that the Big East.
Big East men’s programs, which started conference play a few days later than the women, have completed 33 of 110 conference games through Friday, while the women have only played 28. The UConn men have played eight games (five Big East) but have had five postponements and one cancellation since the beginning of the season.
The Big East women’s programs have also played fewer games — league and non-league — on average than teams from any other Power Five conference and thus are a bit more behind in the race to 13. Meanwhile, Providence and Creighton announced Friday that they had to extend their COVID19 pauses due to additional issues.
Reporting from Michelle Smith with the Pac-12 indicates the conference doesn’t intend to make up the vast majority of postponed games.
That said, it is about seven weeks into the season, with roughly another seven to go until conference tournaments roll around. If most schools are only around 20 to 30% through conference play, then it doesn’t seem realistic that 100% of games can be completed.
Disruptions should be expected at this point, and with non-athlete students returning to campuses soon, basketball players will have a tougher time being in even a semblance of a “bubble” as they’ve been in since Thanksgiving.
Where does the Big East go from here?
Does the conference stick with its current model or change course?
Back in December, Commissioner Val Ackerman said league doctors still believed the current “travel model” could be done safely, though the conference had developed contingency plans for one or multiple controlled-environment sites and a regionalized travel model. She also pointed to the NCAA’s implicit “standard” of a 50% completion rate as the lowest benchmark that the Big East should look to surpass (i.e., 13 games minimum to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, 25-game maximum).
Reached for comment Wednesday, Big East women’s basketball senior associate commissioner Tracy Ellis-Ward maintained that the conference’s plan is to reschedule and play as many games as possible.
“Every effort is being made to reschedule postponed games while also respecting the scheduling format agreed upon by our schools, particularly in the matter of density,” EllisWard said. “At this point we are not altering our plan, but we remain open to pivoting should the circumstances demand it.
“Our goal remains for all teams to play the maximum number of Big East games possible within the current time constraints, however recognizing that amount may vary due to the impact of the virus.”