By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
 
William & Mary became the latest Colonial Athletic Association men's basketball team to press the pause button for COVID-19 reasons. The Tribe's next two series, vs. James Madison this weekend and at UNC Wilmington on Feb. 13-14, have been postponed.
 
It's far from ideal, especially going into the final month of the regular season. But W&M coach Dane Fischer knows there more important factors to consider.
 
"Our guys have a terrific amount of perspective as we go through this," he said. "What we talk about a lot is for us to miss a few basketball games because of this virus, and you hope that's all it ever is, you look at what's going on in the rest of the world and there are far more significant problems.
 
"The lives of a number of people across our country and across the world … just being able to have that perspective helps as we go through this. We'll do our best as a staff and as a team to be productive over these next couple of weeks and try to get ourselves ready to play well as we can heading into the last couple of weeks in the season."
 
Assuming the Tribe (6-7, 4-4 CAA) can resume in two weeks, it would have scheduled games remaining against Elon (away on Feb. 18, home on Feb. 20) and Northeastern (both home, Feb. 27-28).
 
This is the second time this season the Tribe had to pause for COVID-19 reasons. The first came immediately after its season-opening loss at Old Dominion. Three games ended up being canceled and three were rescheduled.
 
Five weekends into the CAA schedule, only Hofstra (11-6, 7-3) has played all 10 conference games. Delaware has played nine followed W&M, Towson and Northeastern with eight each.
 
Fischer, who said everyone in the program is "well and healthy," believes his players have shown character in handling the unpredictability of the last several months.
 
"They've done a great job of going through the ebbs and flows of this going all the way back to last March," he said. "There are so many unknowns that we've all dealt with. Are we going to get back for summer school, which didn't happen. When are we going to start in the fall? What are our workouts going to look like? What's our season going to look like?
 
"We had a pause after our first game, and I thought our guys did a great job of handling that it's out of our control and trying to find ways for us to get better as a team. We've had some schedule adjustments because of that. There's just a ton of stuff that is really out of everyone's control this year."