COVID-19 guidelines changing how ASU operates
Arizona State’s Kimani Lawrence approached Sun Devils head coach Bobby Hurley moments after the team wrapped up practice Saturday afternoon. The senior forward had a modest request that had nothing to do with playing time or a scouting report on the next opponent. He wanted to know if Hurley would arrange a team breakfast.
Hurley couldn’t say yes, didn’t want to say no either.
In any normal season that wouldn’t have been an issue, but this isn’t a normal season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Off-court team gatherings are a big part of the bonding process and they’re even more important for a team that is working a lot of newcomers into the fold. But such gatherings aren’t advisable with the coronavirus spreading at an alarming rate.
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Hurley struggles with that part of the equation as well. He enjoys players and fellow coaches over for gatherings at his Scottsdale home but has had to refrain from doing so until the global health pandemic subsides.
“By now I would have had the guys over at least a half a dozen times,” he said. “It’s nice to get guys off the practice floor and have them in a relaxed setting where everyone can just relax. I miss being able to do that but it’s just where we’re at with this thing right now.”
It isn’t just about team gatherings as whole. Players are discouraged from congregating even in small groups. Four players aren’t allowed to gather at a lunch table, even on the road. Instead players will grab a boxed lunch and head back to their room.
So everyone can remain masked, eating and drinking during a flight or a bus trip are prohibited. As a result teams are scheduling later return flights home so players can eat after the game, usually socially distanced boxed meals eaten in the venue after the game.
Teams are discouraged from lingering in the visiting locker rooms and to shower at the hotel whenever possible.
ASU typically flies commercial to a road game with a charter flight home but is now chartering both directions, so it has more control over the environment.
When the Sun Devils traveled to Connecticut for Empire Classic games against Villanova and Rhode Island to start the season they had a stopover in Tulsa that was just long enough for the team to eat and the plane to refuel before taking off for the long leg of the trip.
“At first there was some grumbling about some of these things but the more you do it, the more you get used to it,” trainer John Anderson said. “Nobody liked wearing a mask at first either but we’re all used to it by now. You do what you have to do.”
Everything is well thought out, down to seat assignments on the plane. Key rotation players aren’t going to be sitting next to each other because if one were to come up with a positive test, Hurley would lose multiple starters for the same game. The exception would be if one player already had the virus, since the current thought is that person would be highly unlikely to get it again.
Players are strongly discouraged from getting up and moving about the cabin, even to use the bathroom.
Hurley typically works out the day of a game to burn off some nervous energy. But since most of the exercise facilities at road hotels are closed, Hurley has to settle for short runs in in the vicinity of the hotel.
While it is easier for teams to operate in their own bubble when at home, being on the road presents challenges. ASU had one of those when it was in Berkeley to play California in its Pac-12 opener in December.
Players and staff were tested before they left, but Anderson got word late the night before the game that the result of a support staff member came back positive. Because of contact tracing Hurley was without part of his coaching staff, reserve guard Caleb Christopher as well as Anderson.
So, when freshman forward Marcus Bagley was injured in the closing minute of the contest, the Cal medical staff had to tend to him because Anderson was not at the venue. The group that missed the game was also not allowed to return with the rest of the team, so a donor sent a private plane to bring it home.
“I know Bobby’s stomach probably turns every time my number comes up on his phone,” Anderson said. “Sometimes I feel like the Grim Reaper.”
Modern technology and the Kinexon tracking data system has made the contact tracing process more fluid. Players have a sort of microchip adhered to their uniform and they’re worn for both practices and games. When players are traveling the device is placed in a lanyard around one’s neck. If a player tests positive the data on that device will detail what players have been in closest proximity to that athlete and for how long.
Mark Zimmer, the equipment manager with various ASU programs for the better part of 30 years, was battling COVID earlier this month. He has to sort through and launder uniforms daily, even disinfecting the folding table before starting.
ASU has had five games postponed or canceled, three due to virus issues on the part of an opponent. The Sun Devils are now in the midst of a stretch of five games in 11 days. The second of those games comes when the Sun Devils (4-8, 1-5) square off against Cal (7-10, 2-8) at 9 p.m. on Thursday night at Desert Financial Arena.
“You can’t get used to any routine because it can change,” Zimmer said. “A team might be going on the road, then it’s not. It’s not just things with your own team that can change it might be something with the other team. There really is no such thing as a schedule any more because things are always changing. You have to be able to roll with the punches.”
Like football, basketball athletes are tested daily, arriving at the football stadium by 8:15 a.m. so that results can be back before practice starts later that afternoon.
When teams are on the road Anderson will conduct the tests with the home team’s trainer stopping by the visiting team hotel to pick them up for analysis. It’s a favor returned when teams are in Tempe to play the Sun Devils.
“We really are in this together,” Anderson said. “No one is happy about the situation but we all want to play and we have to work though it. You want to help the other school out because they’re helping you out too.”
Even the media has been impacted. The ever entertaining Bill Walton likes to arrive on campus and film a lighthearted
segment featuring a player or coach in advance of each game. Those can’t be done any longer because Pac-12 schools are limiting non-essential visitors. Walton, and all other on-air television talent seeking information or background for an upcoming broadcast now have to conduct interviews via Zoom.
There is no exception for the radio voice of the Sun Devils Tim Healey. Rather than stop by practice for a quick interview with the coach the day before a game, Healey settles for a phone interview the morning of a contest.
Game day staffing is limited to essential personnel only.