South Carolina COVID issues postpone SEC opener vs Kentucky
South Carolina’s Southeastern Conference opener against Kentucky has been postponed, the SEC announced.
The postponement marks the fifth straight game the Gamecock men’s basketball team will miss due to COVID-19. According to the release, the Dec. 29 contest has been postponed “due to a combination of positive tests, contact tracing and subsequent quarantining of individuals within the South Carolina basketball program, consistent with Southeastern Conference COVID-19 management requirements.”
The Gamecocks (1-2) haven’t played a game since a Dec. 5 road contest at Houston — a game that neither Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson nor assistant coach Kellen Sampson attended due to contact tracing protocols. Three days later, both the Cougars and the Gamecocks announced positive COVID-19 tests within their respective programs.
“All we know is that we got back from Houston, and Houston announced they had positive tests. And then our guys wanted to test,” head coach Frank Martin told reporters last week. “And so we had an additional test, and that’s when we found out that we had positives.”
Since then, South Carolina has canceled a Dec. 10 home game against Wofford and a Dec. 14 road trip to George Washington. The Gamecocks postponed their Dec. 19 rivalry bout against Clemson. The team has yet to play a game at Colonial Life Arena in the 2020-21 season.
After the bulk of the team returned to practice over the weekend, there was optimism that the Gamecocks would be able to play their scheduled home game against South Carolina State on Dec. 23. But the school announced that game’s cancellation on Monday as well as a second pause in team activities.
South Carolina isn’t the only SEC team impacted by COVID-19. Tennessee has also missed five games this season due to COVID-19. Mississippi had four games impacted. And most recently, Florida star Keyontae Johnson collapsed on the court and was diagnosed with heart inflammation known as myocarditis, which could be related to his COVID-19 diagnosis before the season.
This story was originally published December 23, 2020 at 1:08 PM.
