BEN MALAKOFF
Early on in the college basketball season, games are already being cancelled and postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. VCU basketball director of operations Jimmy Martelli is recognizing that his job is not the same as it was last season.
On Monday, Nov. 23, Martelli, who helps create the men’s basketball schedule, received a phone call during practice from a staff member in the Tennessee Volunteers basketball program. He was told the team was dealing with some issues and the tournament VCU was scheduled to play in might be cancelled. Martelli then informed coach Mike Rhoades that they needed to reassess the team’s options.
Martelli said cancelling games off the schedule is something that has never had to happen in the past.
“You schedule one game in a typical year and it could take a week to get everybody to say yeah,” Martelli said. “If I’m dealing with an ops guy or an administrator, they may say yes but I gotta take it back to my head coach.”
For example, this season VCU was scheduled to play Penn State on Dec. 2. Rather than in past seasons, the scheduling meeting was much more straightforward.
“They had a date, we had a date. They wanted to play at home and we proceeded quickly on that,” Martelli said.
But when Tennessee cancelled their weeks worth of games due to positive COVID-19 tests, including the Volunteer Classic that Monday afternoon, Martelli spent the rest of practice on the sidelines making phone calls to people he knew were holding events.
Once the cancellation was made public, Martelli said VCU was like a “free agent.” When practice ended around 4 p.m. that day, Rhoades and Martelli sat in the office till around 8 p.m. trying to gather all the information and where it would be best to play the first game of the season.
“We went from the Mohegan Sun…to guys running things in Las Vegas, Indianapolis, to Florida, to seeing if we run something here at the Siegel Center,” Martelli said. “I mean, we ran through every scenario.”
Around 7:30 p.m., the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic contacted VCU since it was one of the tournaments Martelli had reached out to earlier that day. They told him the teams were being tested now and that if something changes they will let him know, but for now there was no room for the Rams to join.
Not too long after, Coach Rhoades received a call from the tournament asking if VCU could be in South Dakota Wednesday night at 8:30.
“I called the guy with the plane and said…I need help,” Martelli said. “I said we are going to South Dakota and he said where and I said South Dakota and he said “no what city” and I had to go back to coach and ask what city we were off to.”
Martelli’s job seems to be more important than ever with cancellations happening at any second. Rhoades holds a lot of faith in Martelli because of the job he has already done for the team and his efficient organization skills. Rhoades even expressed his approval in Martellis job after he tweeted “Jimmy Martelli is a savage” on Monday night.
“Jimmy’s such a high level dude,” Rhoades said. “Jimmy got it done. Honestly, how many hats he’s wearing right now in this craziness — he’s so organized. He keeps the players organized, the staff organized…Nothing gets Jimmy too high or too low and that really helps nowadays.”
There were already so many pieces of information Martelli had to keep track of, which included outlining the schedule down to the specific time when the team will eat dinner on the road. In the most recent tournament, he kept two itineraries based on if the team won or lost due to the different times they would play following the results.
He also keeps a spreadsheet of every Division I scheduler’s contact information in case the team needs a backup option if a game is cancelled.
The eventful start to the season is something Martelli said no one was prepared for. Especially with conference play starting in late December, a game at home against a specific team must be replaced with that team at home for a later date. But now that the season is underway, Martelli said the early experience of cancellations and rescheduling has prepared him for the rest of the way.
“I feel like we as a staff and program are trying to remain flexible as we can,” Martelli said. “We will remain flexible and diligent in communication and try to figure out how to continue to put our guys in the best light and if there’s other opportunities that come up that we need to adjust on, we’ll be ready.”
