UTRGV Athletics announced its COVID-19 gameday protocols for the upcoming men’s and women’s 2020 -2021 basketball season across its multiple venues earlier today.
According to a news release from Athletics, games at the UTRGV Fieldhouse will be limited to 255 fans, 10% of a max seating capacity of 2,500, to properly follow social distancing.
Additionally, the first two home games of the season will be played without fans on Nov. 28 as UTRGV men’s basketball hosts UTSA and on Dec. 4 against Our Lady of the Lake University.
According to UTRGV Vice President and Director of Athletics Chasse Conque the decision was made out of an abundance of caution.
The first UTRGV home game with fans in attendance will be on Dec. 21 as UTRGV women’s basketball hosts Incarnate Word.
Conque shares his excitement about games returning to the UTRGV Fieldhouse during a Zoom news conference earlier today.
“Putting everything into place certainly has been the work that’s consumed us the last several weeks,” Conque said. “[I’m] excited for our student-athletes. I think that’s where we have to start. They’ve gone through a lot, got to go back through even last spring when we’re talking about basketball and so to be able to put them in an opportunity to be back on the court, our coaches, and certainly our fans.”
UTRGV women’s basketball will host the first annual South Padre Island Classic on Dec. 18 and 19 at the South Padre Island Convention Centre.
Additionally, UTRGV men’s and women’s basketball will play a combined four games at Bert Ogden Arena throughout the season:
— UTRGV women’s basketball vs. Texas A&M Corpus Christi on Dec. 2;
–UTRGV men’s basketball vs. Texas A&M Corpus Christi on Dec. 2;
— UTRGV men’s basketball vs. Grand Canyon University on Feb. 5 and;
— UTRGV men’s basketball vs. Grand Canyon University on Feb. 6.
According to the news release, fans will be allowed at these games in a limited capacity.
Golden Grape Entertainment President Ron Patel, who oversees H-E-B Park and Bert Ogden Arena, explains that they are taking an abundance of caution to provide a safe gameday environment.
“We’re honored UTRGV has placed the trust in us to host their event and host it safely,” Patel said. “I can tell you that we have taken abundant precautions and even more than is asked of us and or required and we’re limiting our seating capacity even more than we would be allowed to do. We’re allowed to up to 50% of the arena but I think right now safety is first and paramount.”
Although fan capacity will be limited at each venue, UTRGV men’s basketball head coach Lew Hill emphasized that the basketball team will have to bring its own energy to games.
“Now we got to create our own energy, it’s just like practice, right?,” Hill said. “In order to have good practices, you got to create your own energy so when game time come we got to be our own cheerleaders, we got to be our own dancers so we just got to go out there and tell the guys, “just have fun.”
For a complete list of gameday protocols visit GoUTRGV.com/game-day.
For more updates and highlights visit GoUTRGV.com.
For Vaquero Radio, I’m Luis Rubio.
