The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:
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The women’s basketball game on Thursday between Rutgers and Purdue at the RAC on the Rutgers campus has been postponed out of an abundance of caution due to an increase in positive COVID-19 tests within the Scarlet Knights program.
The decision was made jointly by the Rutgers athletic department and its sports medicine staff in consultation with the Big Ten Conference.
Rutgers and Purdue will try to find a makeup date later this season.
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The Penn State-Ohio State men’s basketball game scheduled for Wednesday has been postponed due to COVID-19 issues with the Nittany Lions.
Any individual who has tested positive has been put into isolation and contact tracing procedures have been implemented, which include quarantine and testing for those individuals who might have been exposed, even if asymptomatic.
An Ohio State spokesman said the team is continuing to prepare for its road game Saturday at Rutgers.
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The NFL says the latest round of testing for COVID-19 produced 34 confirmed positives among players and 36 more positives among other personnel.
The player total is 13 more than the previous week and the highest since testing began in August. The previous high was 32 the last week of November.
The most recent round of testing was performed during a seven-day period that ended Saturday. In all, 16,088 tests were administered to 2,356 players and 24,621 tests were administered to 4,346 personnel.
Since the beginning of August, the NFL has administered just over 922,000 tests to players and personnel and 256 players have tested positive.
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The Atlantic Coast Conference has postponed two women’s basketball games this week for third-ranked North Carolina State after a positive COVID-19 test, quarantining and contact tracing within the Wolfpack program.
The postponements affected N.C. State’s games Thursday at Virginia Tech and Sunday at Wake Forest.
Instead, No. 2 Louisville will visit Virginia Tech on Thursday while Boston College will visit Wake Forest on Sunday.
That was part of a series of scheduling adjustments announced Tuesday by the ACC. They included No. 24 Syracuse’s home game Sunday against Notre Dame with the Orange remaining in COVID-19 protocols, as well as Pittsburgh’s Jan. 14 game at Notre Dame with the Panthers also in protocols.
The ACC also announced four other rescheduled games that had been postponed: Miami at Louisville on Jan. 26, Virginia at Virginia Tech on Feb. 2, Miami at Georgia Tech on Feb. 16, and Florida State at Louisville on Feb. 23.
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Top-ranked Gonzaga was scheduled to play West Coast Conference rival Santa Clara in men’s basketball on Thursday afternoon, but the game has been postponed because of COVID-19 protocols in the Santa Clara program.
Instead, undefeated Gonzaga will face archrival BYU at 5:30 p.m. PST on Thursday.
BYU’s originally scheduled game against Pacific on Thursday was postponed due to COVID-19-related protocols within the Pacific program.
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The No. 6 Baylor women are restricting team activities after coach Kim Mulkey tested positive for COVID-19, and have canceled Thursday’s much-anticipated home game against No. 4 UConn.
Mulkey missed Baylor’s win Saturday at TCU because of contact tracing after being exposed to a family member who tested positive. Mulkey initially tested negative and was in self quarantine. She had planned to rejoin the team Monday, but tested positive that day and will isolate for an additional 10 days.
The school said Baylor’s participation in upcoming games will be determined by how long the program is restricting activity with safety of the program and its members driving those decisions. The next scheduled game for the Lady Bears is Sunday against Kansas State.
UConn is next scheduled to play at home Saturday against Providence. In that game, coach Geno Auriemma is seeking his 1,098th win, which would tie him with the late Pat Summitt for second on the all-time wins list behind Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer (1,103).
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The Memphis Tigers’ men’s basketball game at UCF has been postponed hours before tipoff because of positive COVID-19 cases and ensuing contact tracing at the Florida school.
The American Athletic Conference announced the postponement around midday Tuesday. A new date has not been set.
This is the second straight road game for Memphis affected by the opposing team’s COVID issues. Memphis had been set to play at Temple last weekend before that game was postponed. Memphis now is set to host SMU on Thursday night.
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The Georgia Tech men’s basketball team has shut down all athletic activities and postponed Wednesday night’s game at Notre Dame because of COVID-19 protocols.
No date has been set to make up the game against the Fighting Irish.
Georgia Tech (6-3, 2-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) said it won’t resume athletic activities until it meets the guidelines set by the ACC Medical Advisory Group. The school gave no details on what caused the shutdown.
The shutdown comes with Georgia Tech in the midst of an impressive stretch after an 0-2 start. The Yellow Jackets have won six of their last seven games, including ACC victories over North Carolina and Wake Forest in the past week.
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Oregon State’s men’s basketball game at Colorado scheduled for Saturday in Boulder has been postponed because of COVID-19 protocols in the Beavers’ program.
The schools and the Pac-12 are working to find a mutually agreeable date to reschedule the game.
This marks the fifth schedule change for the Buffaloes and the third concerning a league opponent. Colorado’s Pac-12 opener at Arizona was moved from Dec. 2 to Dec. 28 due to a pause in the Buffaloes’ program.
Colorado’s home game against Washington State on Dec. 5 was postponed due to COVID-19 issues in the Cougars’ program and has yet to be rescheduled.
Oregon State’s game at Utah on Wednesday also was postponed.
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The English Premier League says there were 40 positive cases of the coronavirus among players and club staff following two rounds of tests last week.
It is more than double the highest weekly figure of positive cases since testing began ahead of the return of league play last June. More people were tested than in previous weeks, however.
Three league games were postponed last week following an increased number of positive tests at Manchester City and Fulham. The postponed games were Everton vs. Manchester City, Tottenham vs. Fulham, and Burnley vs. Fulham.
The league says it “continues to have confidence in its COVID-19 protocols, fully backed by the government, to enable fixtures to be played as scheduled.”
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The Premier League will continue despite a third national lockdown being announced on Monday.
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