Stanford coach Jerod Haase hasn't been in his office since last spring. Saint Louis hasn't had a team meal or been in its locker room together since last March. There are teams that have played four games; there are teams that have played 23 games. The entire Ivy League canceled its season, while four other teams have opted out. Hundreds of games have been postponed or canceled.
The effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the 2020-21 college basketball season are endless, and we've yet to see how it ultimately impacts conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament.
"There's no handbook for this," Fairfield coach Jay Young said.
Changes to the schedule have been constant, with games canceled less than an hour before tipoff and games scheduled with one day's or two days' notice. Teams have been displaced for months on end, and teams have gone weeks without playing games.
There's been very little flow to the season.
"So much of basketball is a rhythm sport," Army coach Jimmy Allen said. "That's the biggest challenge."
ESPN talked to more than a dozen men's basketball coaches across 13 different leagues to share stories of their experiences and discuss the specific hurdles that the pandemic has brought to the world of college basketball over the past 2½ months.
'We couldn't come home'
Stanford's team plane was on a runway in Texas getting gas when the tweets started coming through to the coaches and players: California's Santa Clara County, which is home to Stanford's Palo Alto campus, was shutting down sports. No contact sports at the professional, collegiate or youth level.
The Cardinal were headed to the Maui Invitational in Asheville, North Carolina, but didn't know if they would even be able to play games once they arrived -- or if they would be allowed to return to their campus to play.
"We found out we couldn't come home," Haase said. "Or we could come home, but we would have to quarantine for a couple weeks."
After playing in Asheville, Stanford spent a week across the state in Chapel Hill, where Haase was previously an assistant coach for the Tar Heels. He also played and coached under North Carolina coach Roy Williams at Kansas. The Cardinal scheduled a game at North Carolina A&T. Once they went back to California, Stanford ultimately decided to make Santa Cruz its temporary home. They practiced at high schools, once playing in the dark because the lights at the high school went out, and played games at the home of the NBA G League's Santa Cruz Warriors.
The Cardinal ended up playing five "home" games -- more neutral than home, in reality -- in Santa Cruz before Santa Clara County lifted its ban on team sports on Jan. 25. They were finally able to return home, with severe restrictions still in place.
"Our guys don't have a locker room. We have to go outside of the arena to meet before the game, in an auxiliary weight room," Haase said. "To say things are back to normal would be a mischaracterization."
At least Stanford has returned home. New Mexico State is still playing its home games across state lines, in Texas.
The Aggies got word in early November they wouldn't be able to play or practice in the state of New Mexico. They went into scramble mode to find a new home for the season and ended up in Phoenix. The team stayed and practiced at the Arizona Grand Resort & Spa and played at The PHHacility.
New Mexico State was preparing to stay in Arizona the entire season -- but the final tally was 65 nights ... and only three games. The Aggies had a couple of opponents cancel due to positive COVID-19 tests, and they also had to endure multiple team pauses due to COVID-19 issues of their own, meaning most of their time at the Arizona Grand was spent in their rooms. They played one game between Dec. 1 and Jan. 25.
"It was just weird. It was just very odd. Sitting in a hotel room, six hours from our school, watching the season unfold, and you don't really feel a part of it," NMSU coach Chris Jans said. "It's hard to describe. I got so tired of standing in front of our team in ballroom-like settings, saying we're going on pause or tomorrow's game is canceled, pack up, we're going home. I never had good news for them."
Even when rumors started to grow that the state of New Mexico was set to lift some of its restrictions for team sports, the Aggies still intended to stay in Arizona for a few more games given its efficient setup. But once New Mexico officially allowed the Aggies to return home for practices, it wasn't even a discussion.
"It was like the floodgates opened: 'Oh, we're going home.' Once it became a reality, it was a no-brainer," Jans said. "It was such a relief to come home, getting comfortable again, sleeping in their own beds."
New Mexico State still has to leave the state for games, so the Aggies' home contests are played at Eastwood High School in El Paso -- about 50 minutes from their Las Cruces campus.
"It's surreal saying this, but these kids haven't been cheered for one time this year," Jans said. "That's hard to fathom."
A few other programs have been forced to temporarily relocate, at times, this season: New Mexico is still playing games in Lubbock, Texas, for example, while Santa Clara and San Jose State also left Santa Clara County for a stretch. But it's likely UC Davis coach Jim Les would have welcomed the option of relocating for a few weeks.
The Aggies are the lone Division I school in California's Yolo County, and the county enacted a temporary ban on games and practices -- while also prohibiting them from fleeing the county and circumventing the rules. So UC Davis couldn't practice for about three weeks and didn't play a single game for 49 days between Dec. 4 and Jan. 22.
Les and his staff had to get creative with ways to keep their players focused during the extended pause: All workouts were outside, they played beach volleyball and they had some shooting competitions. But when players and coaches would go home, they would turn on the television and see teams across county lines playing games.
"That was the most difficult for everybody, for the staff, for the players," Les said. "They're watching other teams in our league, teams 20 minutes away from us, playing. There was a level of frustration."
The pause officially came to an end when UC Davis traveled to UC San Diego on Jan. 22.
"We were so happy to be back playing," Les said. "But we weren't allowed to fly. So we hopped on a bus for 9½ hours. Our guys would've walked there."
'They can't even breathe, because they're not in shape'
As of early February, we counted 162 different pauses to team activities so far this season, with those teams recording a combined record of 77-85 in their first game back off of pause. That record might not be as poor as one might expect. But Evan Miyakawa, who produces advanced analytics charts about college basketball, conducted a study about team performance coming off COVID-19 pauses that found teams coming off a pause are at a 2.3-point disadvantage this season, with that disadvantage growing the longer a team is on pause. A 28-day pause, which several teams have undergone this season, is worth a 4.0-point disadvantage, according to Miyakawa's study in late January.
Saint Louis coach Travis Ford can speak firsthand to Miyakawa's findings. His Billikens started the season 7-1 with wins over LSU and NC State, but they didn't play a game between Dec. 23 and Jan. 26 due to coronavirus spreading throughout the team. Eleven of 16 players, a couple of managers and Ford himself all tested positive within a one-week span. Because the state of Missouri requires players who test negative after first contracting the virus to remain in quarantine for 14 days and players who test positive to remain in quarantine and then not practice or compete for another seven days, the team did essentially nothing for a month. Ford said the Billikens held one individual workout for one player on Jan. 12 but didn't resume practice until four days before Saint Louis' home game against Dayton on Jan. 26.
And so Ford was forced to address the biggest question coaches have had to answer this season in regard to coming out of quarantine: What do we do at practice? What type of game shape are these players in? Do we focus on conditioning? Can we play any 5-on-5? And the answer for every player might be different.
"It was hard to tell where we were at," Ford said. "We were balancing how hard we go, knowing we have to be in shape, but you don't want to go so hard we have to recover ...
"We had to answer a bunch of questions that nobody had answers for."
The Billikens lost to Dayton by five. Then their game against Richmond was postponed due to COVID-19 issues in the Spiders' program, and then they lost at La Salle a week later. The Billikens played one game in 42 days, with the 43rd day being the day they played the Explorers.
"We couldn't find the next gear. There was a glaze," Ford said of the losses. "We're learning. We're asking, 'Did y'all feel tired?' We don't know what it is. They're trying to react, and we feel like we're in decent shape, but the reaction time ... We're a good rebounding team, but we're watching our players trying to react, and we always get this ball, [but we didn't]. They were trying to turn it on, trying to rally each other, trying to figure it out. I don't know how much of it was physical and mental -- probably a little of both."
While Saint Louis suffered its COVID-19 issues all at once, a number of teams have gone on multiple pauses. By our count, at least 20 teams have had more than one pause this season. Siena recently entered its fourth pause of the campaign. The Saints didn't start their season until Jan. 3 due to pauses in November and December. They played 10 games in the month of January. And they are now back on pause.
Siena coach Carmen Maciariello, who tested positive earlier this week, said he has had to completely adjust how he conducts practices this season.
"You can't be old school where we're having three-hour practices. My longest practice was two hours, and it was once. We usually go 60 to 75 minutes," Maciariello said. "It's a lot of soft tissue work, stretching, yoga, swimming pool. Preventative stuff. After a back-to-back, we have two days off, one day to work on yourself with individual workouts and then two days of prep work. And that's without travel."
The Saints actually defied the national trend of struggles after a COVID-19 pause, winning their first six games of the campaign after finally starting on Jan. 2. But they're going to have to do it again once they return from the latest pause.
"It's halftime of our season, we're 8-2; let's beat that mark these next 10 games," Maciariello said.
Villanova went on back-to-back pauses between Dec. 23 and Jan. 19. Jay Wright wanted his players to be able to see their families for the holidays, so the Wildcats postponed a game against St. John's, and families of the players came to campus over Christmas. But Wright and another staff member tested positive for COVID-19 upon return, and the team went on pause. The Wildcats returned to practice for one day then had to go on pause again.
The Wildcats are still a top-10 team but haven't been quite as consistent since returning. Before the pause, Villanova was 8-1 with four straight wins by at least 13 points. Post-pause, the Wildcats are 5-1, with a convincing loss at St. John's and a couple of closer-than-expected wins over Big East foes. They did look much closer to their old selves in a blowout win over Marquette Wednesday night.
"I think it was hard coming back after 27 days off," Villanova senior guard Collin Gillespie said during a news teleconference earlier this month. "But we did a good job, our coaches did a great job making sure we were still working out while we were in quarantine as best we could, making sure we're staying in shape and keeping our conditioning up. But obviously, when you don't play for 27 days, don't play together, only have a few practices, it's difficult. Just with the team, the jelling of the team. But I think we're starting to get our legs back."
Aside from the teams that opted out of the season, the longest pause by our count was that of North Carolina Central, which didn't play a single game between Dec. 7 and Jan. 29. Eagles coach LeVelle Moton said the team has had four different battles with COVID-19, and due to the school requiring cardiac testing following a 14-day quarantine, players who test positive are out for at least 20 days.
It has severely limited the team's practice numbers since the preseason; Moton said NCCU has had eight practices all season with 10 players or more.
"We've had five or six kids at practice. We played 2-on-2 for like 20 days. Someone else comes in and we can play 3-on-3. We don't know what we're good at," he said. "Three kids come out of quarantine the day of the game against South Carolina State. But we're not in no shape to play nobody twice. We've never had a practice with our complete team. We've never practiced against a zone because we've never had five players to set up a zone."
Even before the 53-day gap in competition, the mental toll of the season was already having a noticeable impact on the NCCU players. The Eagles had COVID-19 issues before the season, so there was limited practice time before facing Iowa on the road on opening day. A couple of players showed symptoms following that trip and had to undergo testing, which impacted the preparation for games at Coastal Carolina and North Carolina.
"They can't even breathe, because they're not in shape. Forget basketball; they're not in shape," Moton said. "By Dec. 12, mentally, these guys are done. We hadn't practiced. They're done."
Not surprisingly, the thought of opting out of the season crossed Moton's mind.
"I'm everything right now except for a basketball coach," he said. "I said, 'If y'all [the players] wanna play, we'll play. If y'all say we're done, we're done.' I want them to have the ultimate senior experience. That's the reason I didn't call the season ... It's not good. We're not in shape; we're not conditioning. The only way to get better at basketball is to play basketball -- and we haven't done that."
Back-to-backs: 'We're not trying to lose the first one'
Back-to-back games have been mostly reserved for the NBA. Up until this year, very few leagues scheduled games on back-to-back days against the same opponent. Of course, it happened in early-season tournaments and then again in conference tournaments; but during the regular season, it was a rare occurrence. The Ivy League has played on back-to-back days, but it's often against different opponents.
This season, a number of leagues figured out the best way to ensure their members play enough conference games was to schedule them on back-to-back nights, in the same location, against the same opponent. There have been some tweaks to that; the Patriot League, for instance, has had a few geographically practical home-and-away back-to-backs, wherein Lehigh will play at Bucknell on a Saturday and then Bucknell will play at Lehigh on that Sunday.
Jordan Sperber, who writes the Hoop Vision newsletter, conducted a study in late January on back-to-backs. As of Jan. 29, there were 272 back-to-back series played. The team that won the first game also won the second game 59% of the time, but he found the second games were generally played at a slower tempo, were lower scoring and included more fouls.
A handful of second-game results have stood out.
Dec. 11: Iona 70, Fairfield 42
Dec. 12: Fairfield 67, Iona 52
Iona rolled over Fairfield in the first meeting, going on an 11-0 run in the first five minutes and never looking back. Twenty-two hours later, it was Fairfield's turn; the Stags ran off a 17-1 run late in the first half and led by double digits the rest of the way.
"I don't have any secrets," said Young, the Fairfield coach. "We were embarrassed; we were never in that game. It was on national TV, an ESPNU game ... You can't commiserate too much because you know you have to get off the mat the next day. Send them some clips that night of some stuff we've got to do a better job of, so they can look at a couple things on their phone. It's that fine line between getting on them and making sure we gotta get off the mat and play in 24 hours."
"We're approaching this like we're in the NCAA tournament: Are you trying to just participate or are you trying to get to the next weekend? We won tonight, congrats, let's wipe the slate clean."Georgia Southern coach Brian Burg on back-to-backs
Those games marked the first back-to-back weekend on the MAAC calendar, so Fairfield coach Jay Young wasn't sure what to expect. Two months later, he knows what back-to-backs are like; and despite some success, he realizes they're difficult. In fact, Fairfield has now won the second game of a back-to-back four times out of six this season.
"I have new respect for the Ivy League," Young said. "I can't believe the Ivy League has done this for so many years."
Jan. 2: Colgate 101, Army 57
Jan. 3: Army 75, Colgate 73
Army was in a unique position this season: The Patriot League as a whole canceled nonconference games, but Army and Navy were able to play because of the service academy exemption. So the Black Knights were at an advantage when they faced Colgate to begin conference play. Or so they thought.
Colgate was up 23 at halftime and the lead only grew from there. The next night, Army jumped out with an early 14-2 run and then pulled out a two-point win late.
"We didn't have any film on them from this year," Army coach Jimmy Allen said. "They had a few new faces, so there's that piece. But it wasn't like we didn't know anything they were doing. They kicked our butt ... How do you deal with the mindset of your guys? From getting beat by 44 to turning it around the next day. There's a piece of pride that goes into that. We tried to talk about one side of the ball and the other side of the ball. We didn't have to be 44 points better: It was 20 points better on offense, 20 points better on defense. Here's the areas we didn't do a good job. Trying to show them film where they can see, we didn't execute here, we didn't finish a possession here.
"But you're trying to make adjustments without practice. You can't do too much."
Jan. 1: Wright State 90, Oakland 51
Jan. 2: Oakland 81, Wright State 71
Oakland has been as busy as anyone in the country this season. The Grizzlies played four games in the first five days of the season, and they lead the country in games played with 23 entering this weekend. And with eight back-to-backs under his belt, coach Greg Kampe isn't a fan.
"I hated every second of it, but I agree it was the safe way to do this," Kampe said. "When we first heard all this, we all fought it, but this was probably the best way to get through the season. Now that we've played the games, I don't know anybody that thinks it's anything but bad. It's unfair; it's hard for the kids."
Against Wright State in early January, Kampe could tell pretty quickly how the first game was going to go. The Raiders went on a 39-5 run in the first half, so Kampe started looking toward the second game -- and he saved a few wrinkles.
"We're looking for things to do differently the next day. We save stuff on Friday, a set or two, a defensive adjustment or two, for Saturday. Two or three sets they won't guard well the first time they see it. If it's a two-point game, maybe I'll use it. But I will hold onto it," he said. "When things started to go bad on Friday, I didn't use what I knew could be good. Wright State is the best team in our league. But the next day, we made some shots early and we pressed them; we tried to attack them to get them in foul trouble."
Jan. 1: South Alabama 88, Georgia Southern 59
Jan. 2: Georgia Southern 62, South Alabama 49
Georgia Southern and South Alabama have had some interesting back-to-back series this season. In the first one, Georgia Southern flipped a 29-point loss into a 13-point win. In the second series, South Alabama flipped a nine-point loss into a 14-point win.
Brian Burg, Georgia Southern's first-year head coach who spent the previous four seasons under Chris Beard at Texas Tech, said he has two very different approaches following the first game of a back-to-back.
"You win on Friday, here's my approach: You enjoy the locker room. You celebrate the win because it's so hard to win at this level. It's a great feeling," Burg said. "Then you head back to the hotel. You eat a meal. Give them a little bit of time to adjust in the room, bring them back to the ballroom. We're approaching this like we're in the NCAA tournament: Are you trying to just participate or are you trying to get to the next weekend? We won tonight, congrats, let's wipe the slate clean. Just have the mentality of putting that one behind you. The next day you have to show up. I talked to Chris Beard and [former NBA and college coach] Tim Floyd; they said to simplify, keep everything simple. Focus on two things on offense and two things on defense -- two adjustments on offense and two adjustments on defense."
The Eagles have flipped three back-to-backs from losses to wins and have swept one back-to-back against Troy.
"You don't want to lose the game before you even play it. We learned that in the Big 12," Burg said. "You can easily lose two or three games by your reaction in the locker room [after a loss]. You have to be a truth-teller, but you can't overload with everything. You're playing for pride; it's just human nature. How are you going to handle adversity? That Friday-Saturday, there's a lot of desperation. You can't let it snowball."
Dec. 16: LIU 75, Sacred Heart 55
Dec. 17: Sacred Heart 87, LIU 72
Sacred Heart's first four back-to-backs went the same way: lose the first, win the second. Maybe Pioneers coach Anthony Latina has the secret?
"We're not trying to lose the first one," Latina said with a laugh. "The first loss against LIU, we got beat by 20. But I didn't feel like it was a 20-point game; it was tied with eight minutes to go. I thought we made a pretty good adjustment the second game. Both games were closer than the score indicated. When you win the first game going away, there's a natural tendency to lay off. After watching the film, early in the game, they came out with so much more intensity. They let their guard down a little bit. The natural tendency when you experience failure, you might analyze it a little closer. What we did didn't work; what adjustments do we need to make? You're more open to that, the players are more open to that."
Latina also has changed his practice schedule for the week. While most teams with weekend back-to-backs have two days off or two light days following a game and then three days of practice before the game, Sacred Heart has been practicing just two days prior to the first game of a back-to-back. But Latina knows all the game plan tweaks and changes to the practice schedule are only successful if the team is winning.
"All these adjustments help if your shots are going in," he said.
Northwestern State, Gonzaga and 2020-21's biggest back-to-back challenge
No team in the country wants to play Gonzaga this season, let alone twice in 24 hours. But that's what Northwestern State and coach Mike McConathy signed up for in December.
The Demons lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in buy game dollars due to the delayed start to the season, and they were on the prowl for games. After finals, they hit the road: at Tulsa, at Missouri State, at Gonzaga, at Washington State.
Playing the Zags in Spokane, Washington, on Dec. 21 was set in stone, but after Gonzaga had COVID-19 issues in early December, Northwestern State wanted to get more games in. It was already planning to play at Washington State on Dec. 23 so was free for a day in between. Shortly before tipoff against Missouri State on Dec. 19, McConathy was on the phone with Gonzaga finalizing a second game against the Zags.
He told his players on the Sunday afternoon before they were about to fly to Spokane that they were going to face Gonzaga twice.
"I told them it was a great opportunity. Nobody else is going to do it, so let's do it," McConathy said. "They looked excited."
Gonzaga rolled through Northwestern State in the first game, but the Demons kept the final deficit to just 17 points the second game. It's a wide margin, but it has held up as one of the smaller winning margins for Gonzaga this season.
"I don't want to say it was relaxing, but there wasn't that anxiety or tension of playing the No. 1 team, because you've already played the No. 1 team," McConathy said. "You popped the balloon and let the air out and just went out and played basketball. You gotta get past playing the name on the front of the jersey, and we had already done that."
Does McConathy expect any coaches to call him in March on how to deal with the top-ranked Zags with such a short turnaround?
"They might call and ask, 'What do you know? How difficult was it?' The difficulty was they're just real talented," McConathy said with a laugh. "So you better be real talented too."
Pepperdine didn't have to play Gonzaga twice in 24 hours, but the Waves did have to face the Zags at an especially inopportune time. Lorenzo Romar's team went on pause shortly after Christmas, meaning they had zero games between Cal State Bakersfield on Dec. 23 and Gonzaga on Jan. 14.
Not exactly ideal.
The Waves didn't get back in the gym as a team until three nights before the contest. They did some shooting drills but had to remain socially distanced. They had one full-contact practice in the lead-up to the Gonzaga game -- the night before.
"The night before, you want to get those two weeks back," Romar said of the first full practice after quarantine. "But it's the best team in the country, and we had one physical practice. It is what it is. Let's go play."
Gonzaga won by 25 that evening; but Pepperdine was in the game for the first 25 minutes, until the Zags went on a 16-2 run to put it out of reach.
"You could be at full strength and be the No. 5 team in the country and the same thing would happen there," Romar joked.
If it had been a different opponent, the long break might have been beneficial for the Waves: extra time for game prep, extra time to break down film. Unfortunately for Romar, that doesn't really apply to this year's Gonzaga group.
"I watched quite a bit. But the more you watch, the more you realize we needed more than one day of practice," he said. "We probably needed about six months."