Nationally ranked AU men’s basketball team loses several players for the season

By Carlos Rodriguez, sports editor

The 10th-ranked Augusta University men’s basketball team will be forced to play without five of its players for the remainder of the 2020-21 season. 

“We will refrain from making any specific comments in compliance to student privacy protections; they are unable to compete for the remainder of the season,” said head coach Dip Metress. “We basically have five players who will be out for an extended period of time.”

The news came out to Metress at the beginning of the new year and he hasn’t seen anything like this happening with other programs.

“I do not know of any program in the country that has numerous players due to COVID-19 out,” said Metress. “As a coach you don’t ever want to have players out, but you want what’s healthy for the players.”

The past two games the team was allowed to suit up only eight players, but now it has been bumped up to nine. Along with not being able to play games, the players are also restricted from participating in practice, giving the team less than ten guys to suit up which brings challenges during practice.

“Practice has been very hard. We haven’t had 10 in practice since probably exams,” said Metress. “We’ll make it work. It’s not easy, it’s tough, it’s tough on our players, but at least we’re playing.”

With a limited bench and unfortunate circumstances, the Peach Belt Conference preseason favorites will have the challenge of accomplishing the honor while shorthanded and overcome beating teams that are at full strength.

The current available players have had to step up to bigger roles in order to give the team the best chance to win. Junior guards Tyree Myers and Darren Lucas-White who are starters are being asked to do more like playing the most minutes. Lucas-White is currently leading the team in scoring with 20 points per game, converting on 62.3-percent of his shots from the field and 60-percent from the three-point line.

Coach Metress spoke about the way other teams will approach them and what he still expects from the team.

“It’s an opportunity to play,” he said. “We still expect effort. We still expect to win. I think there’s some people licking their chops because they have a chance to beat us now cause we’re a little shorthanded but that doesn’t excuse us.”

Despite dealing with this situation, Metress has praised the way his team has responded.

“We persevered, we been very resilient, we’re nationally ranked, we’re playing in front of no fans and we’re still playing with a lot of effort and intensity,” he said.

The Jaguars have a full plate with four games in a span of a week. First up, Augusta (3-1, 1-1) will play a road conference game tonight, Jan. 16 at 7:30 p.m. against Georgia Southwestern (4-1, 2-1). Then they play another road game Monday, Jan. 18, against Columbus State (1-1, 1-1).

“We got to make some adjustments coaching wise that are on the fly and in the midst of playing four games in seven days, and it’s hard because you don’t get much practice time,” said Metress.

After the two road games they return to the home floor for two straight games against Lander (4-3, 1-1), Wednesday, Jan. 20, and against Clayton State (0-3, 0-3), Saturday, Jan. 23. All games will be broadcasted on pbcsportsnetwork.com.

 Contact Carlos Rodriguez at carrodriguez@augusta.edu.

AU Coach Dip Metress will have to finish out the season without five of his players, including several starters. (Bell Ringer staff photo)