clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Florida delays start of season due to COVID-19; Baylor’s Scott Drew tests positive for virus

COVID-19 is already having a major impact on the 2020-21 college basketball season.

NCAA Basketball: Baylor at Florida Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

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.

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.

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.