WSU vs. UW men’s hoops postponed because of Coug Covid cases

The Washington State Cougars will have to wait a bit longer to resume their season as a Covid outbreak on the team has forced the postponement of its game against the Washington Huskies that was scheduled for tonight, the school announced this morning.

The extent of the situation is unknown, as the school didn’t elaborate beyond stating the postponement was “due to COVID-19 protocols within the Cougs’ program,” meaning that some combination of positive tests and contact tracing have left WSU too short-handed to play a game.

The Pac-12 recently changed its stance on Covid spread within a team, allowing for postponements rather than forfeits.

Assuming that nobody on the team comes down with severe sickness, this could end up being a net benefit for the Cougars. WSU students are still on winter break; whenever the game is rescheduled, the Cougs should be able to look forward to a full house.

When might that be? The guess here would be that it will take place the other week WSU and UW are scheduled to have their second single-game week against each other — the Cougs and Huskies will play on February 26 in Seattle, so it makes sense that this game will likely take place on the preceding Wednesday or Thursday (February 23 or 24) in Pullman.

The school described WSU’s program as “on pause,” but as of now, the next scheduled games are still on; if everything goes according to plan, they’ll return to the court on January 6 at Colorado and then play at Utah on January 8. That’ll be two full weeks in between games.