Charlotte 49ers basketball team easing back to full strength at practice

Charlotte 49ers men’s basketball coach Ron Sanchez was checking the calendar the other day. He realized that almost exactly a year earlier, his team played Georgia in a preseason exhibition on Oct. 24 at Halton Arena. The regular-season opener for the 2019-20 season against James Madison would soon follow on Nov. 8.

Sanchez’s team isn’t nearly that far advanced at this point of this season, one that remains cloaked in uncertainty on when it will start and how it will play out. The coronavirus pandemic, of course, is the major player in that. And it’s already affected Charlotte’s two major sports in more drastic ways than most programs.

Two weeks ago, on the eve of the official start of preseason practice, seven 49ers men’s basketball players and staff went into quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19. Sanchez said Tuesday it won’t be until the end of this week that the entire team is back together at practice. That news came on the heels of what, at the time, was a third game the 49ers football team had called off since the beginning of the season.

“You’ve got to wait it out,” Sanchez said Wednesday. “There’s no manual for our trainers and our doctors for what we’re going through. Each player reacts one way or another, reacts another way. So right now we’re not completely back yet. But we’re getting back guys back gradually. And again, we were going to err on the side of caution. We’re not going to try to skip a step and make a situation that’s a current obstacle even worse than what it is.”

Sanchez said that even without a full squad, practice has been ongoing. Improvisation has been a key.

“I’m pretty good at thinking outside the box,” Sanchez said. “Instead of teaching things as a whole, sometimes you’ve got to teach them in segments. Instead of going up and down with 10 guys maybe we go up and down with six guys, three on three, so you find the way to teach your offense or defense in parts and to get your core conditioning in parts.

“What we’re trying to do is find what this obstacle is presenting for us and just take advantage of that instead of sitting back and complaining that we don’t have what we need. We’re going to be in the problem-solving mode instead of the pointing-out-the problem. We’re not going to waste time with that.”

Still, Sanchez said some of the methods can be hit or miss. And that’s fine.

“That’s how you grow and that’s how you learn, and there’s no previous experience to this one,” Sanchez said. “You know, to be completely transparent, all that we as a staff are trying to do is make as few mistakes as we can. We know we’re going to make some; it’s inevitable. We haven’t been there before. How do we make as few mistakes as possible is how we’ve tried to approach this and how can we communicate that with our athletes.”

Sanchez said the 49ers’ nonconference schedule — which can now begin Nov. 25 — remains uncertain. The Myrtle Beach Invitational, in which the 49ers were scheduled to play Nov. 19, 20 and 22, was canceled earlier this week by ESPN, which operates the event.

“I’ve never been in a situation where in late October we’re still trying to figure out games,” Sanchez said.

Conference USA, however, released its conference schedule on Monday. Due to coronavirus concerns, teams will play two games per visit at four select conference opponents and host four select teams for a two-game series, while playing a rival opponent one time at home and away.

The 49ers open with a two-game home series Dec. 31 and Jan. 2 against Western Kentucky.

“I give our commissioner, staff and the conference office a lot of credit for trying to figure out a way to give us an opportunity to compete,” Sanchez said. “I applaud them for it not being traditional. It does give us a chance with minimal risks in between games.”

The 49ers lost three starters off last season’s team that went 16-13, the first winning season at Charlotte since 2013-14. Four players transferred out of the program. But Sanchez has one of Conference USA’s top backcourts returning in senior Jordan Shepherd and sophomore Jahmir Young, who was C-USA’s freshman of the year. Two players have also transferred in, guards Marvin Cannon (Washington State) and Jhery Matos (Dayton).

“It’s been 12 months since that Georgia game, that’s how far behind we are,” Sanchez said. “But I’m pleased with the effort of the guys and how hard they have worked and how they’ve embraced what we’re dealing with.”