Ensor confident MAAC tournament will be able to be completed amid pandemic concerns

The first event in Atlantic City since it left last March, MAAC tournament is back at Boardwalk Hall this week. (Photo by Rich Ensor/Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference)

When the sports world as we knew it dropped the curtain 361 days ago, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference was among the last inhabitants of a landscape ultimately ravaged by COVID-19.

The MAAC, which moved its conference tournament out of Albany and into Atlantic City for a three-year foray at a true neutral site, held out until the last possible moment, pulling the plug on its men’s and women’s basketball championships just two hours before the NCAA pulled the emergency brake on the entire sport in an attempt to combat the pandemic.

Now, after leaving Boardwalk Hall nearly a year ago, the MAAC has returned to the Garden State, the first visitor back after an arduous journey to get there.

“I’m feeling pretty good about where we are now,” commissioner Rich Ensor reiterated after completing a regular season in which the MAAC was able to play approximately 81 percent of its league schedule. “I’m certainly well-versed in changing schedules on the fly, almost weekly, but the coaches have been great, they’ve been flexible. They understand the goal here, to get the games in, and have not griped about it at all. It’s been a long journey to come back, and we certainly appreciate everyone’s efforts to get there.”

Ensor expressed his optimism and concerns for the coming week in equal parts on a conference call last Tuesday, where he outlined some of the parameters and safety measures the MAAC will be taking in Atlantic City in the midst of the ever-raging pandemic. First, to mitigate the amount of people in any given area, each team will have its own exclusive floor with direct access to hotel towers and space for team meetings and film breakdowns — the men’s teams at the Tropicana, the women’s teams at the Hard Rock — and each team will have 150 tickets allotted for friends and families, allowing for up to 600 patrons in attendance for any given tournament session. The Atlantic City Convention Center has also provided space for three courts on which to hold  practices.

Secondly, and more importantly, the commissioner revealed a near-$200,000 investment in what he termed an “extensive daily testing regime” including PCR saliva testing mandated by the NCAA.

In the event that the men’s and/or women’s champion(s) were to incur a positive test between winning the MAAC and arriving for the NCAA Tournament, a contingency plan is in place.

“It’s a little different for the men and the women,” Ensor elaborated. “The men’s team will fly out Saturday night after the conclusion of the championship game, they’ll charter out of Atlantic City International (Airport). The women will go back to campus, or some site near campus, and they’ll fly out either Tuesday or Wednesday (March 16 or 17).”

“We do have backups in both circumstances. Obviously, the runner-up in both championships is our No. 1 choice if they’re available, and then we would go to the semifinalists if we need to go there, and they would be based by seed line.”

Ensor further stated that a team could play with as little as six players if necessary, if enough players have tested positive and are out of the testing protocol, in order to avoid a possible no-contest due to a positive. The commissioner also said that any team on standby would have to agree to go back to campus to test in accordance with NCAA guidelines, but would only need to perform antigen testing because PCR tests would be conducted while competing in the tournament.

Speaking of the tournament, which is in the last year of its contract next year, Ensor has expressed a desire to stay in Atlantic City, but has yet to engage in formal talks to extend the conference’s partnership with Boardwalk Hall.

“We’ve had preliminary discussions,” he admitted. “We’ve been snakebitten the last two years because of COVID, but we hope to prove next year what a great asset Atlantic City can be for the MAAC, and the MAAC for Atlantic City. We’d like to see the partnership extended, but we haven’t gotten into any formal discussions yet.”

In any event, despite the obvious concerns, the enthusiasm remains high, albeit slightly tempered.

“I think the teams are going to be very cautious,” said Ensor. “Again, everybody’s worked hard to get here. They’re just not going to go about the town and interact like they normally would. I think we’ll be okay.”