Summer of COVID was a challenge for Purdue basketball

More: Purdue 2020-2021 prospectus

For Matt Painter, a basketball coach who for many years has placed such a premium on "decision-making," the term took on a whole new meaning for his program this summer, as it waded through the chaos COVID-19 wrought on college sports' off-season.

As the virus presented unprecedented challenges, Painter found himself crafting his messaging to his players around things that have nothing to do with basketball.

"That's the million dollar question for each one of them, the decisions that they're making socially and who they're going around," Painter said last week. "If they make good decisions on campus and they make good decisions at home, it just doesn't matter (because you should be safe).

"You have to be smart about who you're around when you're out in the masses. You've got to be smart about who you're around, period. I've watched a lot of Chicago Cubs baseball and that's what they've talked about a lot, to just assume everyone else has it and assume you have it at all times. If you do that, and you role play that, knowing you don't have it, and I don't have it, but if you act that way, and I act that way, we're protecting each other and we're protecting everyone else. That's sort of the two cents we've given them, just to make really good decisions.

"When you coach people you become almost a nag, like you're their parent. You know, they tune their parents out and then they get to us and they listen to us, but then they end up tuning us out, too."

Nevertheless, COVID-19 struck the Boilermaker roster, numerous members, actually. Extrapolating from Purdue's athletic department's data, all cases recovered without normally and without incident, and none remain active.

Mitigating the virus has been a challenge for all these programs, not just basketball.

One such example: Compelling athletes — conditioned to want to participate, even through discomfort — to proactively pull themselves out.

"There's like a level of coolness with a 20-year-old maIe," Painter said, citing trainer Chad Young and supervisor of basketball operations Elliot Bloom as those who've had to keep in players' ears the most as workouts were organized. "They sometimes just can't get over talking openly about what's going on and their fears or whatever. We have this bravado about us, but you want guys to be able to let their guard down and talk to you. I think there's a lot of anxiety. Kids that play, their sanctuary is basketball. ... It's also about getting guys to open up and be honest. Before, if you have the sniffles, it wasn't that big a deal. You don't have to say something to anybody. But now it's a big deal. If you've got a little bit of a fever, that is a big deal. You'll have guys like, 'Yeah, a couple days ago, I was starting to have some chest aches,' and you're like, 'Hold on here, what do you mean a couple days ago?' Any time these things are happening, you need to notify us and we need to get you tested and get on top of this.

"Some guys are the other way, they'll tell you every single thing that's wrong with them, but there are some guys who'll be just very, very casual. We just want to help them."

Still, it was a disrupted summer, of players rotating in and out of quarantine, of college basketball's previous normals for off-season training becoming foreign concepts.

Under a normal set of circumstances, Purdue would be overseas right now, but its exhibition tour of Europe was called off months ago. It's hoped that it'll feasible a year from now. Under a normal set of circumstances, too, Purdue would have been conducting full-squad, real-life practices this summer. That's yet to happen, and there's no telling when it might.

Sasha Stefanovic remembers arriving at Purdue a few years ago in time to practice — really practice — all summer as the Boilermakers prepared for the World University Games. Now, it'll be September soon and newcomers Jaden Ivey, Ethan Morton, Zach Edey, Carson Barrett and Chase Martin have yet to so much as be on the practice floor with more than a handful of other players, if that.

"They've done a good job adjusting to the situation," Stefanovic said. "It is different. I'm sure their heads have been spinning at times, but they've done a good job."

Purdue has kept its players bunched into pods of four. They're training groups and roommates, to make contract-tracing smoother when positive cases hit.

"What we thought June 1 and what we think today, it's like that was three years ago," Painter said. "It's absolutely nuts, because (then) you were like, 'That's rational. Let's plan for this.' Then all of a sudden, a month later, that's irrational and, 'There's no way we can do that.'"

It's made for an off-season in which, as redshirt freshman Mason Gillis put it, "Every day is different."

Because of the difficulties, Purdue hasn't necessarily been able to make the gains it's hoped to, coming off a disappointing last season.

"Definitely not at all," Gillis said. "... You can't have a good season without a good summer, but we've been trying to do everything we can, and I think we've been having a good summer, probably not like what we would be doing without the pandemic separating all of us.

"We're still making improvements, maybe not as much as we could have or in the exact areas we'd have liked, but we're still improving."

Painter still worries about leadership. And any time a team welcomes a crop of potentially influential newcomers, chemistry is an important element to summer.

Now, when teams can really only meet as full units virtually, there are barriers there.

"It's definitely a challenge, harder than it would be, but I think we have a great group of guys who can communicate virtually," Gillis said. "Then, when we do see each other in person, there's no gap ... the connection is still there."

Stefanovic, one of those who are especially eager to fill perceived leadership voids, said communication has been a priority, to keep the Boilermakers as connected as can be under the circumstances, by any means necessary. That was a priority during the disjointed spring and has remained a priority since the team returned in June.

Painter has always also put a premium on teams' ability to deal with adversity. This qualifies.

"It just shows that the team that's united the most and has the most mental toughness and resiliency, it comes into play," Stefanovic said. "Now it's the unknown. You don't know whether you're going to have a season, or it'll be pushed back, or there'll be no crowd. It's a weird thing no one's ever really had to deal with.

"We talk about being tough on the court, but in this situation, you have to be mentally tough, because there's a lot that's unknown."

It's a difficult position to be in, but one that won't hold Purdue back, at least in its coach's opinion.

"And the reason why is because it's the same for everyone else," Painter said. "As long as it's an even playing field."

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