<p>Following a pair of close losses to very strong Plainfield and Perry Meridian teams in early December, Whiteland’s boys basketball team found its groove with a double-overtime victory over Roncalli.</p><p>That sort of win can give a team all kinds of momentum. So when the Warriors found out less than 48 hours later that they were going to be quarantined for the next two weeks, coach Nate Cangany was obviously concerned.</p><p>How would the time off affect his team? And how are players and coaches supposed to approach that hiatus?</p><p>"It’s kind of obvious, but nobody’s gone through this before," Cangany said. "As a coach, how do you handle quarantine? Are you going to do Zoom or Google Meets every day? Are you going to give your guys workouts? Are you going to give them some time off?"</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]<p>Time off was one of the ideas that Cangany implemented after consulting with other coaches as well as his own assistants. Whiteland didn’t return to the gym until last Monday, allowing for five days of practice before Saturday’s trip to Batesville for a holiday tournament.</p><p>The decision paid off, at least in the short term — the Warriors swept the host Bulldogs and Jennings County to take home the hardware and extend their win streak to three. (Games and weeks.)</p><p>As it turned out, Whiteland wasn’t the only boys hoop team in the county that had to work around a two-week hiatus. On Dec. 15, Center Grove, Franklin and Greenwood all found out that they’d been sidelined by COVID-19 as well — meaning that all of the county’s four largest programs were all on the shelf at the same time.</p><p>Communication was key with coaches unable to get their kids together in the gym; both Cangany and Greenwood coach Joe Bradburn tried to keep in touch with players periodically through text messages and online video conferences. But perhaps more important was self-discipline, as players had to motivate themselves to stay sharp and in shape.</p><p>For some, that was easier said than done. Senior Logan Willoughby was one of a few Whiteland players that actually tested positive for COVID-19; for at least part of that two-week hiatus, he said, working out wasn’t really an option.</p><p>Despite the setbacks, the Warriors were able to stay afloat.</p><p>"It was definitely a bummer at first," Willoughby said. "(But) once we came back we had five practices, and the first practice we had to hit it running and just keep building our momentum that we carried from Roncalli."</p><p>Though Center Grove lost its return game at Perry Meridian on Saturday, Trojans coach Zach Hahn was pleased with how his players handled themselves during the time away.</p><p>"They found ways to get shots up outside in their driveway," he said. "We gave them some agility workouts that they could do, and they came back in great shape and ready and eager to play."</p><p>Eagerness wasn’t a problem for Franklin either, apparently. The Grizzly Cubs, who went into their quarantine time winless and fresh off a 48-point loss to Center Grove, returned to action last week with victories over Shelbyville and Southwestern. Coach Brad Dickey said that while his players weren’t able to do much physically while on lockdown, the time away didn’t hamper them emotionally.</p><p>"Our guys came back in good spirits," he said, "but we have always been a pretty happy, hard-working group."</p><p>How the time off will affect Greenwood remains to be seen. The 3-0 Woodmen host Speedway tonight — their first game since beating Franklin at home on Dec. 11 — and coach Joe Bradburn seemed to be more concerned than his peers about how the break would impact his team’s continuity.</p><p>At least from a basketball standpoint. Mentally, the coach is confident his team is capable of handling the interruptions by now; the players have, after all, been dealing with this sort of situation since March, when Greenwood’s tournament run was cut short due to the onset of the pandemic.</p><p>"Since the sectional last year, our guys have been kind of numb to changes, to be honest," Bradburn said. "That was a major deal, with the excitement of the sectional, and then bouncing into this season and we’re still dealing with it. They’ve just become kind of numb and hard to it. We’re just kind of, ‘Okay, another change’ — it’s not something that we really sit there and dwell on now."</p><p>There isn’t much time for dwelling with the Johnson County tournament on tap next week. While some teams are still dealing with the lingering effects of quarantines right now, the general sense is that the playing field will be more or less level by then. </p><p>"I think by next week, most teams will probably be back to close to where they should be," Cangany said.</p><p>Perhaps the bigger issue is how the quarantines will impact scheduling for the rest of the season. Each of the local teams that got sidelined had anywhere from two to four games postponed or canceled, meaning that schedules will either end up light or be a bit more busy than normal this month and next.</p><p>Bradburn, for one, finds himself trying to strike a delicate balance between getting the Woodmen enough games and making sure they have enough practice time to do what needs to be done before the postseason.</p><p>As more of an old-school coach, Bradburn would prefer more practice time, but he understands that might not be an option.</p><p>"You’ve just got to more teach on the fly during games, I guess, is kind of what you’re left with at this point," he said. "We’re situating games and we’re trying to spot them up where we’ve got a couple of days between the next game, but in some situations you can’t match up schedules.</p><p>"If we lose many more games, then I’m not going to worry about making them up and just jamming them all in. We need practice time to perfect what we want to do."</p><p>In a normal season, that practice time would be there, but the 2020-21 season has been and will be far from normal.</p><p>The good news is that even though no coach came into the season with any experience in handling this type of situation, all of them knew that it was going to be different and that adjustments would almost certainly need to be made.</p><p>The interruptions that came in December may or may not be the last.</p><p>"This season’s just going to be that way," Hahn said. "Whether you’re on quarantine or not, you may lose a game or two, and you’ve got to find ways to practice differently.</p><p>"You just have to be flexible."</p>
