Ensor: MAAC can pull off safe tourney in AC

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference commissioner Rich Ensor is confident the league can put on a safe tournament in Atlantic City next week.

Speaking on a Zoom call with the media on Tuesday, Ensor hit on the safety protocols in place, the tournament format and the league’s future in AC.

“We attempt to mitigate risk whenever possible, recognizing that it is a pandemic and there is only so much control you have over circumstances,” the veteran commissioner said. “I feel pretty good about where we are right now.”

The tournament, being played at the city’s iconic Boardwalk Hall, is set to tip off on Monday and run through the championship games on Saturday. The regular season concludes on Friday, and teams are scheduled to begin arriving in AC on Saturday and begin daily COVID-19 testing.

Ensor said daily PCR spit tests will be administered, which has required a $200,000 investment by the MAAC.

“None of this comes cheap,” he said. “We’re trying to protect the teams to the highest degree possible.”

Still, some coaches remain uneasy about allowing family and friends to attend in person and brining so many people to a central location, especially with teams lodging at Casinos (the men are staying at the Tropicana and the women are at the Hard Rock).

“We’re going to a casino,” Monmouth coach King Rice said. “That’s the main thing. We’re going to be in a casino starting on Sunday and we play Wednesday or Thursday. That’s a lot of time away from our homes in a casino. I’m hopeful that the casinos are straight and we can keep COVID off all of our kids.”

Saint Peter’s coach Shaheen Holloway expressed concern that kids who have been sequestered all season may decide to mingle with family members at the hotels.

“I think it’s an unbelievable venue to have a tournament at if it wasn’t COVID and it wasn’t a pandemic,” Holloway said. “You worry about it being so open. The casinos are going to be packed and people are going to be walking around. It’s hard to police that. It’s going to be challenging.”

Ensor said the league has worked with the city to establish a bubble-like environment. Teams will each have their own floor of the hotel through at least Thursday as well as access to three full practice courts being housed at the Atlantic City Convention Center.

Each team has access for 150 family and friends, Ensor said. For any given session, that amounts to between 6001,000 individuals when you add in guests of the MAAC and the arena. Boardwalk Hall can seat up to 16,000, but Ensor said the MAAC caps it between 12 or 13,000, so the space remains fairly open.

“I would probably talk to the athletes on my team and suggest to them that they have sacrificed to get to this point in time where they can compete in the tournament,” Ensor said. “We’re accommodating friends and families because we’ve heard from so many different levels about the lack of being able to watch their athletes in person and how much that has affected their personal lives . ... This was our modest attempt to secure some availability for these friends and families but not open it up to the general public.”

As for the tournament itself, a team is not automatically disqualified if it has a positive test. In theory, it could compete even if it only has six available players (the MAAC requires teams to play if they have eight scholarship players available). Ensor said teams can withdraw up until Sunday at midnight, but after that the bracket is locked in if a team can’t play, the game is declared a no-contest and the unaffected team advances.

The team which earns the league’s automatic qualifying berth to the NCAA Tournament will take a chartered flight straight from Atlantic City to the Indianapolis, the site of the men’s tournament. The women’s winner will return to campus and travel to its tournament site in San Antonio on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

In the event the automatic qualifier has to withdraw from the NCAA Tournament, the runner-up will take its place followed in line by the highest seeded semifinal loser, Ensor said. The NCAA will not allow an AQ replacement after Tuesday at 6 p.m., so if the MAAC winner then had to withdraw, they would most likely be replaced by one of the first four out of the 68-team field.

The NCAA said last week that if its tournament goes off without a hitch, it will pay out the full $231 million revenue to its member leagues. For a smaller conference like the MAAC, that’s significant source of funding.

“We didn’t get all our funding last year from the NCAA, but we got a good portion of it, so to have that secured for the upcoming year assuming the tournament goes as planned is important for our financial structure,” Ensor said. “It provides about 20-25% of our operating budget.”

Ensor said the league slimmed down its budget in the neighborhood of $1.5-2 million because of the impact of COVID. It eliminated the $65,000 dues each of the 11 member institutions pay and cut staff over the summer. Ensor indicated the league is back up to about 2/3 of a full staff and expects to be back to a normal level by the academic year that starts in September.

Meanwhile, the MAAC and Atlantic City have one year remaining on a three-year contract to host the conference tournament. The league preference, Ensor said, is to remain in AC for the foreseeable future, but there have yet to be formal discussions between the parties.

“We think it’s a great site for this championship,” Ensor said. “We’ve been snakebitten the first two year because of COVID, but we hope to prove next year what a great asset Atlantic City can be for the MAAC and us for Atlantic City. The management at Boardwalk Hall is aware we want to talk about an extension and we think we owe them that.”