“I just wander around and find a different spot each time,” Sullivan said last week.
Sullivan has attended road games, but he’s not a part of the Tier 1 group — coaches, players, trainers, managers, etc. — so he travels separately. He’s not on the team charter flight as he would be in normal years.
It’s the same story for WHIO’s Larry Hansgen, the longtime voice of the Flyers, and Doug Hauschild, UD’s director of athletics communication. Hansgen and Hauschild have traveled with the team to road games since the early 1980s. If or when they go to road games this season, they will not travel with the team.
To this point, the Dayton men’s basketball team has avoided COVID-19 positive tests that would cause it to pause team activities, though the women’s team has twice shut things down for that reason. Coach Shauna Green’s program cancelled five non-conference games in December and has had to postpone five Atlantic 10 Conference games this month. It’s not scheduled to play again until Jan. 31 at St. Bonaventure.
Speaking last week before those postponements, Sullivan said it has been a challenging season for him and everyone for a number of reasons.
“I give all the credit to the young people and the coaching staffs that have made the sacrifices they’ve made,” Sullivan said. “What they’re doing behind the scenes, a lot of people don’t see. It’s nothing short of remarkable. They deserve the credit. Some of them haven’t seen their families. Some of them were able to see them for a day or two over the holidays. They’ve made extra sacrifices in extraordinary circumstances.”
Each month has brought challenges. The men’s team had a game against George Washington on Wednesday at UD Arena postponed Tuesday because of a positive COVID-19 test among the Colonials. GW head coach Jamion Christian then announced he had tested positive Tuesday morning and was experiencing slight symptoms.
No makeup date for the game has been set. The Flyers are scheduled to return to action at 4:30 p.m. Saturday on the road against Virginia Commonwealth.
“Each day can bring something different,” Dayton men’s coach Anthony Grant said Monday night on his weekly radio show with Hansgen on WHIO Radio. “We are truly trying to take it one day at a time and trying to remind everyone — whether it’s our players, managers, coaches, staff — we need to do everything we can to adhere to our social distancing, our mask wearing, our washing of hands, not putting ourselves in a position where we could become vulnerable. The truth of the matter is we don’t know all the ways you can be vulnerable. Sometimes you can do everything right and you end up in a situation where something happens. We’re hopeful. We continue to move forward and control the controllables as much as we can.”
The most trying time for Sullivan had to have been November and early December when a flurry of COVID-19 cancellations changed the men’s team’s schedule on an almost daily basis.
“It certainly was not an easy time,” Sullivan said. “Things were changing rapidly. We really kept our focus on trying to maintain the games against SMU, Mississippi and Mississippi State. Before we lost the (Crossover Classic), we probably had a top-10 schedule, I would argue. You’re at the mercy of a lot of variables. We did the best we could. We got the games we could on short notice. We had dozens of games fall through. My focus was on the players and the coaching staff.”
SATURDAY’S GAME
Dayton at VCU, 4:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network, 1290, 95.7
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