They hunkered down, all of them, over the summer. They planned. Not for recruiting visits, or practices or games, though they surely talked plenty about those things, too. Rather, all the ACC men’s basketball programs and sports science departments swiveled their attention elsewhere.
They planned for a taxing new reality.
Virginia traveled this week to the West Coast for games Wednesday and Saturday against California and Stanford, in a trip that will last nearly a week. They, and every other ACC team, are trying to solve a novel equation.
The ACC this summer added Southern Methodist, Stanford and California, engorging itself in college sports’ latest wave of conference realignment. Teams, for the first time ever, will have to cross the country in conference play, raising the specter of travel that, if not carefully considered, can batter teams before they even take the floor.
The ACC chunked out the schedule in this first year of national expansion, so that teams travel to play both Stanford and California in one swing. Virginia will be one of the first two teams to test its approach to the travel, a real guinea pig. Virginia Tech also jetted to the Pacific, its schedule mirroring Virginia’s.
Every team is approaching the travel slightly differently. Virginia Interim Coach Ron Sanchez and Virginia Tech Coach Mike Young discussed their plans in the ACC’s weekly media call Monday. So did California Coach Mark Madsen and Stanford Coach Kyle Smith, who already have experience making the reverse trip east.
The teams have mostly stuck to traveling 48 hours ahead of a game — though the snow tossed a wrench in that this week, extending Virginia’s trip by a couple days. Virginia Tech, flying Monday for a Wednesday game, planned to do little after arriving. Maybe a little film. But mostly bundling the players off the plane and into their hotel rooms to rest.
This summer, all the coaches worked the phones, searching for advice. They talked to people with extensive NBA experience. They consulted sports scientists.
“Really getting their feedback, picking their brains on their expertise,” Madsen said. “On the pros and cons of keeping the guys on the West Coast schedule versus trying to transition them to East Coast time.”
Virginia held meetings aplenty, figuring out how to optimize their daily plan amid the travel. Luckily, the Cavaliers have NBA experience in-house with their strength coach, Mike Curtis, who worked for six years as the Memphis Grizzlies’ strength coach. Sanchez said his input proved invaluable. And there were so many questions to answer.
“How do we adjust our clocks?” Sanchez said. “When do we start practice? At what time are we going to bed? At what time are we going to get them up?”
The thing about this kind of travel is it impacts more than just a week or so. Such is the strain of cross-country travel — including the time-zone shift — that it alters the plan the week before, as well as the week after.
“That was where the time was invested,” Sanchez said. “It wasn’t just on the travel yesterday or today, as it was scheduled, but it was last week, the week before and then what we will do once we arrive back at home.”
Virginia Tech benefitted from its football team having made a similar trip in the fall. That trip, though freighted with obvious differences, created institutional knowledge. So the team’s basketball team talked, Young said, to the football team’s strength staff and principal staff and team doctors about “staying hydrated, proper rest patterns,” the works.
But you can do all that planning, call in the scientists, labor over an elaborate plan. Then a frigid forecast can scupper half of it.
The snow that chased Virginia away from Charlottesville early could have posed a real problem. But with the players on winter break, there were no academics to contend with. School, fortunately, is out of session.
That clears space for other things. Madsen noted his team managed, on its first extended road trip east last week, to fit in extra film sessions and walkthroughs. And little bonds a team like a road trip. The Cavaliers know that well, junior guard Isaac McKneely said, from their trip earlier this season to Florida. They are hoping for a similar experience.
“This is a good opportunity for us to get a couple wins but also bond,” McKneely said Saturday after Virginia’s home loss to Louisville. “Just being in California for a week. We don’t have class or anything for a week, so we’ll just be together.”
Sanchez echoed the same ideas. The team will “get out” — making sure, Sanchez added, to not burn too much energy — and take in the unfamiliar sights. The Cavaliers have set up something of a home base out west, a place to settle down in their own bubble.
“For us to just have time to dialogue, watch more film, not have to travel, get guys back into the arena where we’re all together in one space — is definitely beneficial,” Sanchez said.
It is not all, of course, about travel. Virginia and Virginia Tech are not just going to the West Coast. They are going to the domain of the conference’s top two scorers.
Stanford senior forward Maxime Raynaud averages 20.9 points per game, and California sophomore guard Andrej Stojakovic pours in 19.9 an outing. Despite such scoring, the Cardinal is 1-2 in the ACC and has lost three straight games by 14 or more points. Similarly, the Golden Bears are 0-3 in conference play, staggering along with six losses in their last seven games.
Neither team presents an exactly formidable challenge. That is good news for Virginia. The hapless Cavaliers limped off their home court Saturday with a 20-point loss that left them at 1-2 in the conference, as they struggle to find themselves and to win games. The team is hoping maybe the trip will provide the start of a remedy.
“I think it’s a good opportunity,” McKneely said. “For us to come together as a group and bond together out there and hopefully come back with two wins.”
It just becomes — after all the logistics, the flights and the planning and the coordinating players’ sleep schedules — about playing ball.
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