Villanova’s season hit quite a bump when it was forced to take two COVID-19 pauses with just a single day in between, missing five games and going nearly a full month between games (assuming Tuesday’s Seton Hall game is played as scheduled). As the program returned to practice Thursday, the lessons learned from the past month and the idea of finishing the season hung heavily over the Pavilion.
“We’re going week by week,” head coach Jay Wright said. “We know this week we’re playing Tuesday-Saturday and really that’s about it.”
Just as Villanova was announcing its return to the court, another Big East program, Georgetown, was announcing that it would be going on a pause. The Hoyas join Villanova, Butler, St. John’s, Xavier, UConn and DePaul as Big East programs that have been particularly disrupted by COVID issues.
As it stands now, Villanova has played three of 20 scheduled Big East games. That leaves them with 17 to play by the first week of March. While that’s certainly not ideal, it’s not impossible. That gives the Wildcats approximately seven weeks to play those 17 games. Under normal circumstances, they play two games per week, so they would have to play a third game in three separate weeks to get to 20 conference games. “That’s what we’re looking at now, how would we get 17 games in,” Wright said. “What would that schedule look like. We have a couple scenarios that look crazy, but we might have to do it. I think we’re all gonna be a little bit more fluid and be able to adjust a little bit more.”
Logistics and uncertainty remain the key challenges facing Big East decision-makers at the moment. Travel, time, and concerns about overextending the players are all issues that must be considered, and then even if you come up with a plan that you think addresses those issues in a satisfactory way, you never know if another team will get hit with a pause and throw the whole thing into shambles. It’s a tough situation, and that’s why the flexibility that Wright mentioned is so important.
Unfortunately, the sport no longer has the benefit of time. There are deadlines approaching, so while flexibility and a wait and see approach are probably the best way to navigate the current circumstances, a decision on how to handle the rest of the conference season will need to be made sooner than later.
“We’re right in that area where we gotta make a decision, do we go for a total of 20 games or do we go for 18, or everybody get in the most they can,” Wright said. “No decisions have been made.”
Even with time closing in and complications mounting, Wright is confident the Big East will find a way to navigate the situation in a way that works for everyone.
“Our AD’s are meeting every day,” Wright said. “Val Ackerman and Stu Jackson are on top of this with all kinds of ideas. I think right now, I don’t think we’re going to make a decision. But I know they’re considering options of everybody playing 18 or letting some play 20 and let everybody else get in as many as they can get in and understand that it’s not going to be equal.”
While Wright didn’t share many details on what options the conference is looking at and what a full 20-game schedule might look like at this point, he is confident that Villanova can get in 20 conference games despite the challenges of the last few weeks and the resulting circumstances on the road ahead.
“We might be able to pull it off,” Wright said, his tone conveying more confidence than his choice of words. For now, we’ll cross our fingers that the Wildcats take the court on Tuesday night and be thankful for whatever Villanova basketball we get in his strange, trying 2020-21 season.
