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Well we got the first news of an SEC basketball program being paused by COVID-19.
Earlier this morning Jeff Goodman reported that the Florida Gators program will be put on pause and isn’t expected to play this coming week.
Florida has been paused due to COVID and is not expected to play at Mohegan Sun, source told @Stadium.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) November 22, 2020
In addition, Baylor Bears head coach Scott Drew has tested positive for the virus, though it sounds like the rest of the team is fine and we’ll play their scheduled games this upcoming week.
Baylor men’s basketball spokesman David Kaye tells CBS Sports everyone in the program with the exception of Drew tested negative Friday and today. Baylor will leave Monday morning to fly a charter plane to Connecticut and will be tested immediately upon arrival at Mohegan Sun.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) November 22, 2020
Florida was supposed to open the season this Wednesday against UMass Lowell, then have the big time matchup with No. 4 Virginia on Friday. Both games are cancelled as they were apart of the Mohegan Sun bubble that was put together for opening up college basketball. Florida is set to open its season now on Dec. 2 against Oklahoma.
It makes it rather uneasy as one of the first major programs to have to cancel comes from the SEC. But hopefully the league and teams can learn early the best way to handle this when these situations arise.
Still, unfortunately this is going to be apart of how the season will go for most programs across the company. All we can hope is that both Kentucky men’s and women’s teams can avoid any serious issues and get to play their full schedules.
Kentucky and Florida will play their usual home and home schedule with Kentucky traveling to Gainesville on January 9th and Florida coming to Lexington on February 27th.
As for Baylor, they open the season ranked No. 1 in the first Coaches Poll and No. 2 in the AP Poll. They haven’t been to a Final Four since 1950 but have a great chance to end that drought if they stay healthy. Hopefully Drew will be ok and not have any lasting effects from this dreaded virus.