ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Jaren English had been looking forward to this day for months.

“I’m excited,” the rising junior guard said in early June, when asked how eager he was to return to campus, to finally see his teammates, to be in the gym again. “I’m just counting down the days until (mid-July).”

Classmate Dominick Welch tweeted in early April, “I just wanna hoop.”

Their St. Bonaventure teammates, while appreciating the seriousness and understanding the importance of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, in one way or another, all seemed to share in the sentiment: The Bonnies wanted to be back in the Reilly Center.

Over three months since last gathering in person and 118 days since last taking their home floor, during a Tuesday, March 10, practice before departing for the ill-fated Atlantic 10 Tournament in Brooklyn, their return is on the horizon.

Bona has put in place return dates for its men’s and women’s basketball teams and established new safety protocols for containment of the coronavirus, the athletics department stated in an email to various media members on Thursday. Men’s players will return to campus July 18-19 while the women’s team is expected to return on July 25. Though their season is scheduled for sooner, fall sport athletes are facing a to-be-determined run in August.

To ensure the safety of the players and members of the campus community, which has only recently begun to reopen with the return of some faculty and staff, Bona has several safety protocols in place, including:

— Student-athletes will be tested for COVID-19 beture returning to campus at testing centers near their homes and will also fill out a self-evaluation health screening before arrival. In the two weeks prior to returning to campus (beginning over the weekend), students-athletes were asked to self-quarantine.

— St. Bonaventure will have a testing machine available on campus and will test each student-athlete upon his or her arrival.

— Athletes will fill out a health screening each day they are on campus through an app before going to class or attending team activities.

— Any athlete flagged from the COVID-19 health questionnaire will be evaluated by a physician.

— Any athlete who tests positive for COVID-19 while on campus will be taken to a local testing center for another test and be moved to a quarantine room on campus in the interim — a second positive test will result in a 14-day quarantine while being attended to daily by training staff.”

— One positive test within a team will prompt testing of each player and staff member.

— Hand sanitizer and disinfectant will be available in all buildings and areas athletes frequently access.

— Policies will be set in motion to keep each basketball cleaned and wiped down before and after each practice and workout.

— Masks will be provided to each athlete (all coaches and staff will wear at all times as well).

— St. Bonaventure basketball players will remain on campus the remainder of the summer.

IT REMAINS to be seen what will happen after players return and how the situation progresses (or doesn’t) between now and what is supposed to be the start of the season in early November. At this point, it’s almost impossible to imagine Bona being able to travel to the U.S. Virgin Islands for the Paradise Jam Nov. 20-23.

From the get-go, college basketball had more time than any other sport to hope that things had returned to normal before having to worry about the status of the season.

But time is running out.

And suddenly, given the recent spike in cases, the uncertainty that continues to hang over the restart of professional sports and the fact that this pandemic is still far from beaten, fall and even winter sports have come into the crosshairs.

In recent weeks, there has been increased talk of potentially pushing back the start of the season to January, thereby continuing to allow for the longest possible time for the virus to wane and for a vaccine to emerge. New Iona coach Rick Pitino is among those who have publicly supported the idea.

“Suggestion to the NCAA, push the start of the season back to January and only play league games,” he tweeted Wednesday. “Buy some more time for a vaccine and to get things under control. Although I can’t wait to be back on the sidelines, the health of my players and staff is what’s really important.”

With how murky the current climate continues to be, it’s becoming easier to envision such a plan coming to fruition, as unfortunate as it might be. The truth is, that picture isn’t likely to become clear until we see how the college football campaign does, or doesn’t, play out this fall.

But for anyone looking for a morsel of information that could mean good news for college hoops, Bona provided one, at least locally, with the announcement that players will be back in two weeks.

“We on!!” English, understandably enlivened, tweeted in response.

(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)