Anthony Grant: Dayton ‘making progress’ with non-conference schedule

Dayton coach Anthony Grant, talking to reporters via a video call Thursday during Atlantic 10 Conference Media Days, said UD had nothing concrete to announce yet about when it will open the season.

“We’re making progress,” Grant said. “Between Neil (Sullivan), our AD and our staff, I think there are some games that we have scheduled and we feel really good about being able to get in the non-conference, and there are some other things we continue to work on. Right now, it’s certainly still a work in progress, but I feel we’re going to be able to put together a schedule that our guys will be excited about playing. It will be challenging and hopefully will get us prepared for the A-10 season and opportunities in the postseason.”

One early-season game became public Thursday when Bellarmine University announced its non-conference schedule. Bellarmine, an Atlantic Sun Conference program located in Louisville, Ky., will play Dayton on Dec. 1. The game time has not been announced.

Bellarmine, which moves from Division II to Division I this season, also plays at Duke on Dec. 4 and at Miami University on Dec. 15.

Dayton’s decision to withdrawal from the season-opening Crossover Classic because of the COVID-19 situation in South Dakota took three games off the schedule. Meanwhile, practice continues with the players focusing on the present and trying not to think about the uncertainty.

“We’re just taking it one game a time,” said senior guard Jalen Crutcher, who joined fellow senior Ibi Watson and Grant during the A-10 session. “We’re not looking forward to that right now. We’re just trying to get better as a team.”

“We’ll worry about who we play when we play them,” Watson said.

Across the country, a number of teams have had to pause workouts or delay the start of the season because of positive COVID-19 tests. One positive test can force a whole team to quarantine for 14 days. Iona had to cancel its first four games Thursday, according to reports, because a member of the staff tested positive.

Watson said Dayton players have had to undergo one COVID-19 test per week in the preseason but that the testing will ramp up next week. The A-10 will require athletes to undergo three tests per week during the season.

“It’s just become the new norm for us,” Watson said. “It’s part of our routine. We know it’s important to get our test.”

While the Dayton men’s team, which saw its A-10 schedule released Wednesday, doesn’t know who it will play at the start of the season, the women’s program learned its schedule Thursday. Dayton announced a seven-game non-conference schedule that includes a seasonopener Nov. 25 at Morehead State (Ky) and a home opener at 2 p.m. Dec. 6 against Central Michigan.

The schedule includes two more road games and three more home games: at Illinois State (7 p.m., Dec. 2); at Charlotte (Dec. 10); vs. Alabama A&M (2 p.m., Dec. 13); vs. Florida (noon, Dec. 20); and vs. Florida A&M (noon, Dec. 23).

Neither the men’s team or women’s team will be able to play outside competition before the season begins. There will be no exhibition games or scrimmages against other Division I teams. This will be the fourth straight season UD hasn’t played the annual Red and Blue games at UD Arena. The three-year arena renovation project caused the cancellation of that game the last three years.

Grant’s team will do the best it can to prepare for the season without those opportunities.

“That becomes challenging because you learn a lot about your team and what you need to do when you get the opportunity to play some of those exhibitions or scrimmages,” Grant said. “What we’ve tried to do is create situations through practice where we’re (playing) intrasquad but competing. In some of those situations, you get limited by the number of bodies available whether that’s bumps and bruises or different things.”

Grant has yet to bring officials into the mix to create a more game-like feel but plans to do that before the season begins.

“In this age of COVID, you have to be mindful of bringing outside people into the group and the risk you run doing that,” Grant said. “You’d have to get (officials) tested and hope you’re not exposing your group to anything. This is unprecedented in terms of what we’re trying to prepare to do. First and foremost, we’re trying to make sure we keep our players and staff and everybody within the program as safe as possible.”