Here’s what happened to delay WSU vs. Stanford

Everyone who tuned in to ESPNU at 2 p.m. PT on Thursday to watch the Washington State Cougars play the Stanford Cardinal was greeted with an odd message: Game delayed pending Covid results.

The scenes were surreal — players just shooting around, coaches sitting on benches, communication sparse. First it was 15 minutes. But 15 minutes turned into 30, and confusion reigned as to what exactly was happening as players retreated into their locker rooms.

Eventually, reports started leaking out that WSU was being tested at Stanford’s behest.

A source who would know put it even more bluntly to CougCenter: “Stanford demanded additional tests to play.”

What, exactly, led Stanford to demand these additional tests — under the apparent threat of walking away from the game — is unclear, but we do now that the initial batch of “additional tests” had some sort of problem, so there was another batch of “additional tests,” from which WSU apparently emerged unscathed, giving the green light to begin the game.

In total, the delay ended up being 75 minutes as the game finally tipped off at 3:15 p.m. PT.

Perhaps related is that Dishon Jackson, DJ Rodman, and Matt DeWolf all were declared inactive before the game after coach Kyle Smith indicated earlier this week that he expected to have all of his players available for the game. None were on the bench for the game.

We’ll update as more information becomes available.