First, it was no one could play San Diego State.
Now San Diego State can't play, either.
The Aztecs men's basketball team officially went on COVID-19 pause Tuesday, scrapping at least Saturday's game at New Mexico and possibly the Jan. 18 contest at home against UNLV. The university tested the entire team Monday, and enough players were quarantined from positive tests or contact tracing that they can't meet the Mountain West minimum of seven.
The Aztecs are believed to be the last remaining men's basketball program in California that had not shut down this season or last. But coach Brian Dutcher kept saying they weren't so arrogant to think it couldn't happen to them, and it finally did.
A day earlier, they had their Wednesday game at Wyoming postponed because of continued COVID issues within the Cowboys program, and Dutcher was talking about the possibility of the Mountain West finding them a replacement opponent.
"We tested today," Dutcher said Monday. "We're not immune to it. Hopefully we continue to stay healthy. If we're healthy, then we'll see what the Mountain West has in store for us. We know we go to New Mexico on Saturday. If there's a game between then and now, I can't answer that right now. I think a lot has to do with how we progress through testing today."
He got the answer Tuesday morning, when the test results came back.
It was not immediately clear which or how many players were positive. Trey Pulliam and Tahirou Diabate already served COVID quarantines in December. Then Adam Seiko and Joshua Tomaic missed Saturday's 79-49 win against then-No. 20 Colorado State because of "medical concerns," SDSU's code for pandemic protocols; Seiko was expected to return Monday and Tomaic later in the week.
Another scholarship player was confirmed positive Monday, according to sources. That leaves six other scholarship players who are not believed to have tested positive previously. The only coach who previously had been in COVID protocols is assistant Dave Velasquez.
Teams were required to provide the conference office with a list of 13 eligible players, of which seven must be available (plus at least one coach) to proceed with a game.
SDSU currently has 13 players on scholarship, but including Jaedon LeDee and Damarshay Johnson Jr. on the list could jeopardize their redshirt years if others weren't available and they were forced to play. Instead, SDSU's list has 11 scholarship players plus walk-ons Jared Barnett and Cade Alger.
The Mountain West recently adopted NCAA guidelines for COVID quarantines following a positive test, which in most cases allows players to return after five days instead of the previous 10. That aligns with recent changes in recommendations by the national Centers for Disease Control.
Local health department edicts trump those from the conference, but the eight Mountain West members in states outside California also adopted the five-day CDC recommendation. San Diego County still has not, meaning SDSU could face a longer pause than others.
USD went from Dec. 22 to Jan. 8 without playing a game, a stretch of 17 days. USC and Stanford went 19 days between games. Cal Poly went 22. UCLA went 26. (In some cases the teams were ready to play earlier but their scheduled opponents weren't.)
A 10-day quarantine starting the day of the testing (Monday) would last until Jan. 20, imperiling the game two nights earlier against UNLV. Then players must receive medical clearance, which typically includes cardiac tests to rule out the heart condition myocarditis that crops up in some cases. Then they start fitness again and ultimately return to full practice several days later.
Unless SDSU reduces the isolation period from 10 days, that might jeopardize the Jan. 22 home game against Boise State as well.
Already, the Aztecs have had two home games erased by opponents' COVID issues — Jan. 5 against Fresno State and Jan. 8 against Nevada. The Mountain West sent Colorado State as a last-minute replacement for Nevada, but that merely moved up the Rams' March 1 trip to Viejas Arena and didn't reschedule the game against the Wolf Pack.
Now the Aztecs could be looking at three, maybe even four, missed home games and fewer than six weeks to reschedule them. The conference does not have an open week at the end of the regular season for makeups, as it did last year anticipating COVID shutdowns.
"The problem is the schedule is pretty condensed," Dutcher said last week. "There's not a lot of room to add games. Most of our league is going through the protocols right now where they're not playing. I would imagine that at the end of the year, they'll all be able to play every game and where will be the space to find us a home game?"
SDSU also had a Dec. 28 home game against NAIA San Diego Christian canceled, but Athletic Director John David Wicker said that was a late add to the schedule and wouldn't trigger refunds to season-ticket holders. However, missed conference games likely would — at an estimated cost of about $250,000 per game.
The Mountain West announced three rescheduled games on Monday. That's only a fraction of what has been missed so far, with the number rapidly approaching 20.
"We're still trying to figure out how we're going to get some more games scheduled, since we don't have a week at the end of the year where he don't have any scheduled," Wicker said. "The conference has done as good as job as you can possibly do managing what we've gone through the past year and a half.
"At the end of the day, probably no one is going to be happy with how it all works out. We just have to make it as equitable as possible."
