ALBANY — Siena College women’s basketball coach Ali Jaques saw the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference schedule unveiled on Tuesday — and then wondered how her team was going to navigate it during the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s so many unknowns,” Jaques said. “As a coach, am I going to have my three best players every game? We don’t know that, so you’ve got to continue to stay the course and get everybody ready that you can.”
Now Siena and the rest of the MAAC are waiting for the NCAA to announce its COVID-19 testing guidelines in order for teams to have a college basketball season.
Siena athletic director John D’Argenio called those protocols "the essential piece" of any return to competition, "because if we’re going to make everything and keep everybody safe, how often we test and how quickly we get results are going to be key."
MAAC commissioner Rich Ensor said he expects NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline to issue testing recommendations on Friday. Those plans will be reviewed by the Board of Governors and approved in early October.
College basketball practice is set to officially begin on Oct. 14.
"I'm sure the schools are going to meet the requirements to have basketball," Ensor said. "How affordable it is is to be seen."
D’Argenio said he doesn’t know yet how much it will cost to test the men’s and women’s basketball teams for an entire season.
“The wild card is going to be the more rapid tests that are less expensive,” he said. “I can say we have a commitment to figure out how to do it.”
Ensor said the estimates he has received are $30 or less per test of each athlete and $1,200 or more for the analyzer.
Ensor said Hainline could call for teams to test their athletes for COVID three times per week. The MAAC has already put in a two-day break between league games to account for that.
“The question becomes are they recommendations or are they requirements, which is important at some level, depending on what the recommendations look like,” Ensor said. “Even when they’re written as recommendations, you almost have to do it because of legal liability, but if they put it as requirements, you certainly have to do it.”
To this point, Siena’s athletes only take part in the random testing that all Siena students are subject to.
Siena president Chris Gibson said the college has asked the NCAA about the possibility of pool testing, where several athletes can be tested as one sample, with further analysis if that sample comes back positive.
“We’re a private institution,” Gibson said. “We’re not public. And so we have to be really smart (about cost). We are committed to the safety of our entire Siena community, including our student-athletes. We understand where the NCAA is going with this. What we’ve said is, can pool testing work? If we’re able to 'bubble' our team and take good care and have good habits and everything else, and if we can take a pooling test, yes, we will absolutely be able to budget (that).”
Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior vice president of basketball, said in an NCAA video recently that the start of college basketball season was delayed until Nov. 25 partly with testing advances in mind.
“We have hope and belief that, from our medical advisory group, more available testing will be the scenario in late November … that is more affordable and more available, and thus we can test on a multiple-time-per-week basis to make sure we get off to a safe and responsible start,” Gavitt said.
The MAAC is anticipating some games may have to be postponed because of positive COVID tests. The league has set aside a week in late February for makeup games.
“Nobody’s ever been through this before, so nobody knows how it’s going to turn out,” Jaques said. “The thing that’s going to be key is ... how often we’re being tested. Three times a week is a lot, and it’s expensive. So it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.”
msingelais@timesunion.com • 518-454-5509 • @MarkSingelais
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