Pac-12's northernmost teams have early edge, while Wildcats, others wait to begin workouts

Sitting both geographically and figuratively in between empty facilities at Arizona’s Richard Jefferson Gym and the busy basketball facilities at the Pac-12’s Pacific Northwest schools, is a tent on the Cal campus where basketball players are allowed to lift weights.

And do just about nothing else.

“Today, we had a lift outdoors in, you know, a socially designed space,” Cal coach Mark Fox said on July 20, the first day the NCAA started allowing supervised workouts. “We’re not allowed to use equipment, so we can’t use a ball and we can’t be indoors. So we’re lifting outdoors, but that’s it. We’re not doing anything other than that.”

Welcome to the Pac-12 basketball offseason, COVID-19-style. Where gauging who is off to a good start is less about looking at rosters and early NBA draft departures than simply looking at the latest coronavirus hot-spot map or state and local guidelines.

It’s a place where, if the season race had already started, Washington, Colorado, Washington State, Oregon, Utah and maybe even Oregon State would be fighting for the top four spots, having been able to practice in normal offseason fashion, while the Arizona and California schools would be languishing at the bottom, their hands tied by state/local/school regulations, and their players generally still at homes all over the globe. (ASU would not detail its offseason activity).

The southern Pac-12 teams can only hope the situation evens out before long, with the tentative start of full practices in late September and the season on Nov. 10.

“We’re glad that student-athletes from various schools can get back in their facilities,” said USC coach Andy Enfield. “It only becomes a competitive advantage or disadvantage if it persists for an extended period of time. In the state of California right now with Gov. (Gavin) Newsom coming out and saying fitness centers are closed and you have to work out only outside, it didn’t make sense for us to bring our players back.”

Enfield could have tried some tent-lifting but said he thought his players were better off working out in whatever facilities they have found near their homes, especially since coaches wouldn’t be able to work with them inside gyms anyway.

“There would be nothing to do,” Enfield said.

The only problem for Enfield is that he still hasn’t met five of his seven new players in person, including grad transfers Tahj Eaddy (Santa Clara), Isaiah White (Utah State) and Chevez Goodwin (Wofford).

Arizona coach Sean Miller has yet to meet in person with five of his new guys, either. Seattle U grad transfer Terrell Brown, plus European signees Daniel Batcho (France), Kerr Kriisa (Estonia), and Azuolas and Tautvilas Tubelis (Lithuania) all committed last spring after having only virtual contact with UA staffers.

There’s no telling for sure when those face-to-face meetings will actually happen, either. International students now have not only the usual visa hurdles but now also potential travel and quarantine restrictions.

Most Pac-12 teams have multiple international players subject to those issues, though Fox caught a break when his two Aussie forwards, Grant Anticevich and Kuany Kuany, opted to stay in California for the summer.

“I’ll be honest with you, one of the kid’s mothers works in than the health industry, and she said, ‘Do not come home, because if you come home, you may not get back,’” Fox said. “She was smart. They’ve been here the entire time.”

Oregon coach Dana Altman says it helps that two of his international players are only in Canada, while Malian forward N’Faly Dante never went home for the summer.

At Utah, center Lahat Thione of Senegal hasn’t ventured farther than Florida, and Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak said all of his still-abroad players are returnees who know the program except for Swedish freshman guard Pelle Larrsson.

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“We’ve just had five months where we haven’t been with our guys on the court, so it’s a real nice feeling to get back out there and coach ’em,” Krystkowiak said. “There’s nothing negative about the fact that we don’t have our full team, and I take a lot of comfort in that the people who aren’t here yet are working their butts off and their hearts are all in the right place.

“I feel really good about where we’re at.”

So does Washington coach Mike Hopkins, who has only Americans on his 2020-21 roster.

“We’ve got the guys back, having them go through tests and quarantines,” Hopkins said. “Just having them back in our footprint and getting some normalcy in terms of routine has been really, really healthy for our players.”

The opposite has been true at Arizona, where sophomore forward Christian Koloko complained this week that he hasn’t been able to return to Tucson this summer and keep adding strength to his 7-foot frame.

“I’ve been really frustrated,” Koloko said.

But Arizona announced plans to bring basketball players back starting Aug. 12, with an eye on getting international ones in town around the time the fall semester begins on Aug. 24. Similarly, USC is hoping to bring guys back for the start of the fall semester on Aug. 17.

And, while Oregon has the luxury of not starting school until Sept. 29, that isn’t making Altman feel all that much better.

Because even if the college basketball season begins as scheduled on Nov. 10, there’s no doubt it will feel different just getting to the starting line.

“That’s for sure,” Altman said. “It’s a unique period.”

Rim shots

• Five-star 2021 center Nate Bittle of Oregon listed Arizona among his top four choices, along with Oregon, Gonzaga and UCLA. The 6-foot-10-inch center has been expected to choose the Ducks but has been playing for the West Coast Elite, a California-based club with strong ties to the Wildcats. Bittle visited the UA for the Red-Blue Game before last season.

• After helping Estonia’s national team beat Lithuania and Latvia last weekend, incoming freshman Kerr Kriisa and his teammates cooled off during two exhibition losses in Finland against the Finnish national team. Estonia lost 97-76 on Wednesday and 75-67 on Thursday, with Kriisa averaging 11 points and 4.5 assists per game while hitting 3 of 12 3-pointers.

• Former UA forward Stone Gettings completed a 290-mile hike on California’s John Muir Trail. A Cornell graduate who completed a master’s in accounting while at Arizona, Gettings posted on Instagram that he hiked for 19 days during his post-basketball break, encountering “multiple brown bears” and climbing 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, among other adventures.

• Stanford freshman guard Tyrell Terry announced he would stay in the NBA draft. ESPN lists Terry only as the No. 44 overall prospect on its draft board but NBADraft.net has him at No. 17 and The Athletic has him at 26.

An all-freshman pick in the Pac-12 last season, Terry averaged 14.6 points 4.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.