How COVID-19 cancellations could affect Wichita State basketball’s AAC title chances
It doesn’t seem like much could ruin what has been a storybook season for the Wichita State men’s basketball team.
The Shockers were counted out of the conference race before the season even began and now enter March in sole possession of first place in the American Athletic Conference, earning Isaac Brown a promotion from interim head coach to the 26th head coach in program history.
The only way to spoil a WSU’s fan outlook on this season? Mention COVID-19 postponements, which have piled up for the Shockers more than just about any major-conference college basketball team.
And now other teams’ problems could rob WSU’s ability to win a conference championship. The Shockers could be in a vulnerable position after SMU postponed two games against WSU last week with Temple likely to do the same for Saturday’s season finale against WSU after the Owls paused all basketball activities this past weekend because of COVID-19 issues within their program.
That means WSU’s chances of winning its first American title could hinge on whether Tulane can clear coronavirus protocol for Wednesday’s game. All WSU needs is to play — and win — another game and with the Temple game in doubt, Wednesday’s trip to New Orleans could be its last chance to move to a winning percentage at 10-2 (83.3%) that would exceed anything better than what Houston could do with a 14-3 record (82.4%) if it wins its last game.
But if Wednesday’s game is unable to be played and another game is not added to WSU’s schedule, then that would create a scenario where the Shockers (9-2, 81.8%) would be helpless if Houston beat Memphis on Sunday to pass them on winning percentage to win the conference championship.
While that doomsday scenario is unlikely, it’s a scary proposition for WSU that it even exists. WSU coach Isaac Brown speculated on his Monday radio show that the AAC could even add another conference game to WSU’s schedule at home for this weekend, although the same promise from the league commissioner has so far gone unfulfilled.
“Nothing is set in stone, but my gut feeling is we’ll have somebody coming here to Wichita on either Saturday or Sunday if nothing changes,” Brown said.
But things have changed this season for WSU too many times to count. In the end, the Shockers could have eight conference games canceled this season — and all eight because of COVID-19 issues on other teams. If the Temple game is canceled and not replaced, then WSU’s 18 regular-season games would be the fewest played in a season since before World War II in the 1939-40 season.
For a team trying to play its way into the NCAA Tournament, WSU has been unable to capitalize on its momentum gained by knocking off Houston on Feb. 18 because three straight games have been postponed. The Shockers have only played once since Feb. 11, a nearly three-week span leading into Wednesday’s game at Tulane.
“I feel bad for Wichita because they’ve been ready to play and they’ve done an outstanding job with their protocol,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said. “The same thing happened to Houston in football. There were five games when they were ready to play, but their opponents weren’t. They were victimized by that as well.”
While WSU fans have grown more and more vocal about their frustration with the amount of games being nixed due to no fault of the Shockers, Aresco and Brown alike both agree that there should be no blame assessed.
“It’s something you can’t control,” Brown said. “I don’t think those teams are doing anything different han we are. They leave it up to their doctors and if the doctors say you can play, then you play and if you can’t, then you can’t. I’m sure they want to be playing the basketball games, but their doctors feel like they can’t.”
“I would caution fans and tell them remember that we’re playing in a pandemic,” Aresco said. “And that COVID happens and it’s unpredictable. In my view, there shouldn’t be any finger-pointing. Anybody can have a problem at any time. You could be rolling along and you’re fine and then all of a sudden, a case pops up. It’s a very transmissible virus, which you don’t need me to tell you that. This shouldn’t be a pejorative situation.”
Regardless of blame, it begs the question — is WSU the most unlucky major-conference college basketball team when it comes to COVID-19 cancellations? An Eagle study indicates yes it is.
The Eagle looked at teams from the top seven conferences in the country — the American, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-12 and SEC — and examined how many conference games each team won’t make up before the end of the regular season.
Trying to play college basketball games during the coronavirus pandemic has proven to be a difficult task for many conferences across the country. But the American has had more struggles than any of the other major seven conferences in the country.
Among the four teams projected to have at least eight conference games canceled, three are from the American — SMU (9), WSU (8) and East Carolina (8). In fact, the AAC is only projected to complete 73% of its conference schedule (30 missed games) — the next closest conference was the ACC at 82% (27 missed games). The Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC are all projected to finish above 92% of their conference season. The average AAC team is projected to have at least five conference games canceled this season, as teams completed on average just 14.5 out of a scheduled 20 conference games this season.
A closer inspection of the 16 teams projected to play less than 80% of their conference schedule reveals that 14 of those teams missed either all or the vast majority of those games because of COVID-19 pauses within their own program. The only two that didn’t? Wichita State (eight missed games) and DePaul (five missed games).
That means outside of DePaul, WSU at least doubled the next-closest healthy team in conference games canceled this season.
This story was originally published March 2, 2021 at 6:30 AM.
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