Villanova is slated to kick off the season Wednesday at the Empire Classic with Boston College, Baylor, and Arizona State. Now, just three days before opening tip, there is a threat to that event.
On Sunday, Baylor head coach Scott Drew announced he had tested positive for COVID-19. Drew said his positive result came from Friday's round of testing and he immediately began isolating and the team conducted contact tracing. He also noted that he is asymptomatic. The program did not register any other positives in Friday's round of testing or after another round of testing on Sunday. As such, Drew stated that the team intended to travel to Connecticut to participate in the event, and will increase their testing to daily in the remaining days leading up to the event. However, hours later, Baylor's opening opponent, Arizona State, announced that it will withdraw from the event in light of Drew's announcement (Jeff Goodman had the report first). That leaves Baylor with no opening opponent while Villanova (hopefully) plays Boston College on Wednesday.
With the news coming slightly before midnight, there has been no word from the Empire Classic people, the Mohegan Sun people, or any of the other three teams involved in the event. For now I would assume one of two things will happen...either Baylor simply awaits the winner of Nova-Boston College and plays them on Thursday, or the event scrambles to try to find a team (someone relatively local?) who has the date open and would be willing to join. Now, those are the optimistic scenarios. It's possible Baylor reacts by deciding not to travel, or that one or more of the other teams pulls out, and the entire event falls apart. I would think that due to the work that went into putting this event together, and schedules together at all, that the remaining schools will want to get games in assuming Baylor continues to return negative tests. Regardless, this is the last thing we wanted to hear just days before the start of the season. Obviously this is a developing situation, and we will update with more info when we have it.
On Sunday, Baylor head coach Scott Drew announced he had tested positive for COVID-19. Drew said his positive result came from Friday's round of testing and he immediately began isolating and the team conducted contact tracing. He also noted that he is asymptomatic. The program did not register any other positives in Friday's round of testing or after another round of testing on Sunday. As such, Drew stated that the team intended to travel to Connecticut to participate in the event, and will increase their testing to daily in the remaining days leading up to the event. However, hours later, Baylor's opening opponent, Arizona State, announced that it will withdraw from the event in light of Drew's announcement (Jeff Goodman had the report first). That leaves Baylor with no opening opponent while Villanova (hopefully) plays Boston College on Wednesday.
With the news coming slightly before midnight, there has been no word from the Empire Classic people, the Mohegan Sun people, or any of the other three teams involved in the event. For now I would assume one of two things will happen...either Baylor simply awaits the winner of Nova-Boston College and plays them on Thursday, or the event scrambles to try to find a team (someone relatively local?) who has the date open and would be willing to join. Now, those are the optimistic scenarios. It's possible Baylor reacts by deciding not to travel, or that one or more of the other teams pulls out, and the entire event falls apart. I would think that due to the work that went into putting this event together, and schedules together at all, that the remaining schools will want to get games in assuming Baylor continues to return negative tests. Regardless, this is the last thing we wanted to hear just days before the start of the season. Obviously this is a developing situation, and we will update with more info when we have it.
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