Facing the No. 1-ranked team in the country coming off a two-plus week COVID-19 pause doesn’t seem ideal for the TCU men’s basketball team.

But that’s the situation the Frogs find themselves in as they deal with an outbreak within the program. TCU hasn’t played since Dec. 21, canceling one nonconference game and postponing two Big 12 games, with top-ranked Baylor coming to town on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 4 p.m. at Schollmaier Arena.

“We can make excuses or make the best out of it. Our intention is to make the best out of it,” TCU coach Jamie Dixon said on Monday. “We’ll see how it plays out. It doesn’t really matter what we think, we just have to be ready to go and be the best that we can be.”

This will be the first time the No. 1 ranked team in the country has visited Fort Worth since top-ranked Kansas came to town on Dec. 1, 2003. TCU has played the No. 1-ranked team in the country five times since that date but those games have been on the road or at a neutral site.

TCU’s original schedule called for it to be playing its Big 12 home opener against West Virginia on Monday night. Instead, Dixon spent the day running individual workouts with the limited number of players available for practice and preparing for Baylor.

All of TCU’s players and coaching staff are fully vaccinated, Dixon said, but the program had an outbreak shortly after returning from Christmas break. COVID-19 cases have surged across the country with the omicron variant being highly transmissible.

The Big 12 tests players who are unvaccinated as well as vaccinated players who are symptomatic. If a player tests positive, they isolate for 10 days before returning to practice. However, with the CDC updating its guidelines and shortening the isolation period to five days last week, the conference could implement those changes but had yet to do so by Monday morning.

Either way, TCU would have fallen under the 10-day isolation period given when its players tested positive. Additionally, teams coming off a COVID outbreak must have at least two practices to help players regain conditioning status.

The Big 12’s return-to-play policy also states that programs must have six scholarship players available and one coach.

The TCU men are one of several basketball programs dealing with an outbreak. The TCU’s women’s team went through a similar situation with three canceled games and one postponement from Dec. 12 until Sunday when they returned to play against SMU, which ended up being a 79-53 loss.

The women’s team was fresh off an upset victory over Texas A&M before dealing with COVID issues. The men’s team was riding high, too, with seven straight victories including wins over Utah, Texas A&M and Georgetown before their setback.

“We don’t have to look at this last week as a setback,” Dixon said. “Somehow we have to turn it into an opportunity. I don’t feel like any of our guys were significantly impacted by it, other than not being able to work out. Obviously, we’ve won seven in a row and we’ve improved.”

TCU (10-1) won its last game 90-55 over Grambling State on Dec. 21 before being put on pause, canceling a nonconference game against Texas Southern (Dec. 29) and postponing its opening two Big 12 games (at Kansas on Jan. 1, vs. West Virginia on Jan. 3).

Makeup dates for the Kansas and West Virginia games are to be announced but Dixon remains hopeful that TCU is able to play a full 18-game conference schedule. The league had an open week before last year’s conference tournament for possible makeup games disrupted by the pandemic but there isn’t a built-in week at the end of this season.

“Playing all 18 games is the plan and the goal,” Dixon said.

Women’s game rescheduled

TCU announced Monday that the women’s game against Kansas originally scheduled for Jan. 2 will now be played Monday, Jan. 10, at Schollmaier Arena. Tip-off is set for 6:30 p.m.

The game was pushed back due to COVID-19 issues within Kansas’ program. The TCU women’s team is off to a 4-5 start and plays at Baylor on Wednesday.

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