Crippled by COVID-19, UNLV basketball faces more game cancellations

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2020 | 12:42 p.m.

When news broke on Wednesday afternoon that UNLV’s upcoming series against San Diego State had been canceled, basketball coach T.J. Otzelberger was right where he’s been for the past 10 days: at his home, in his bedroom, by himself.

Otzelberger tested positive for COVID-19 before UNLV’s game against Pepperdine on Dec. 14, forcing the cancelation of that contest. Since then he has posted up in his room, away from his players and assistant coaches, but it has apparently not stopped the virus from spreading through the program at a rapid rate.

UNLV’s first cancelation due to a positive test was a Dec. 9 home game against Eastern Washington. Since then, the Pepperdine date was canceled and the team’s first two Mountain West series — at Wyoming on Dec. 20 and 22 and vs. San Diego State on Jan 2 and 4 — have been indefinitely postponed. The program went into a “pause” following Otzelberger’s positive and a week later announced the pause would continue at least through the end of December.

By the time UNLV plays next on Jan. 7 against Colorado State — if that game takes place as scheduled, which is far from a sure thing — it will have been 33 days since the team last took the court.

On Wednesday, Otzelberger was realistic about the prospect of UNLV basketball getting back to normal anytime soon.

“The season is probably not going to look the way any of us had hoped,” Otzelberger said. “The No. 1 thing is the health and wellbeing of the guys in our program. It has been a really challenging few weeks for sure. I don’t know what the numbers or the cases are for all the other teams, but it seems like it’s spiking everywhere. It’s hitting us hard now.”

COVID-19 continues to throw the 2020-21 season into disarray. While the program has been on pause there have been no in-person activities of any kind, which means no practice, no meetings, no film sessions, no weightlifting, etc. Otzelberger doesn’t anticipate the team having enough players available to practice until Jan. 4 at the earliest, which would mean the team will have to jump from three weeks of inactivity straight into game action against Colorado State with only one or two practices (at most) to get back up to speed.

And more than the on-court implications of a long COVID delay, Otzelberger is concerned about the mental strain being placed on the players amid all the uncertainty.

“For a lot of guys it has been quite a few days off,” Otzelberger said. “Some in excess of three weeks. We’re trying to strategize and game plan as best we can. When we get back and practice, the priority will be to make sure they’re doing okay mentally. There have been challenges that way. We were hopeful they’d be able to go home for holidays, but we haven’t been able to do that as most of them are quarantining or isolating [on campus].”

While Otzelberger did not comment on any players who may have tested positive, he reported his own symptoms have been mild. And his isolation appears to be working from a family standpoint, as he said his wife and children have tested negative.

“I’ve been fortunate that way and I’m just trying to do everything I can,” he said. “I’ve been in my room upstairs for 10 straight days because I don’t want to take any chance of exposing my wife or kids. I think as a parent and a coach, the first thing that goes through your head is you want to make sure your family and players are safe. The only way to do that has been to be away from them.”

There are currently 16 games remaining on UNLV’s regular season schedule, not including the San Diego State and Wyoming games. In this COVID-ravaged season, how many of those end up being played is a complete question mark.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.