Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo has tested positive for COVID-19.
The school’s athletic department made the announcement Monday.
Associate head coach Dwayne Stephens will lead the Spartans’ practices while the 65-year-old Izzo is in isolation for 10 days.
Izzo, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016, says he has minor symptoms and will stay connected with his coaching staff and players virtually.
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The Southeastern Conference has postponed Saturday’s game between No. 20 Auburn and Mississippi State because of positive COVID-19 and quarantining within the Bulldogs’ program that the school says left the team below the minimum threshold of 53 available scholarship athletes.
The game is tentatively rescheduled for Dec. 12 in Starkville, Mississippi.
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No. 5 Texas A&M paused in-person activities on Monday after a player and a staff member tested positive for COVID-19 after the team returned from its weekend trip to South Carolina.
Coach Jimbo Fisher said the Aggies would not do anything on campus Monday and would instead conduct all work through Zoom. He said the team was undergoing additional testing and contact tracing to see if the coronavirus had spread any further.
Fisher said he hoped his team could return to campus on Tuesday. He was also confident that his team would be able to play on Saturday at Tennessee, but said he wouldn’t know for sure until they had completed testing and contact tracing.
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The inaugural service academy cross country championships have been canceled due to upward trends of COVID-19 cases.
The event, dubbed “America’s Race,” was to have been the first tri-meet featuring all three service academies, Army, Navy and Air Force and was scheduled for Veterans Day on Wednesday at West Point. It would have been the first major athletic event staged on the parade grounds of The Plain since the opening of Michie Stadium in 1924.
The competition was to have included a women’s 6K race and a men’s 8K, and attendance was to have been limited to the Corps of Cadets.
Army’s men’s and women’s cross country teams will instead hold an intra-squad meet Wednesday on The Plain, the original grounds of the academy and the site of the first Army-Navy game in 1890.
Air Force’s football game at Army two days ago also was canceled because of a virus outbreak in and around the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
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Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman has tested positive for COVID-19 and could miss the Razorbacks’ game at No. 6 Florida on Saturday.
The university made the announcement Monday in a news release.
Pittman was tested Sunday as part of the team’s regular protocol and learned Monday that his test came back positive. SEC protocol for asymptomatic positives will require him to isolate for at least 10 days from the date of the positive test. Pittman was tested again Monday morning and was awaiting those results.
Defensive coordinator Barry Odom will serve as the team’s interim head coach. Pittman will take part of team meetings virtually while in isolation.
The Razorbacks are off to a 3-3 start in Pittman’s first year, a significant jump from last year’s 2-10 campaign. Arkansas has won two of three and is coming off a 24-13 victory over Tennessee.
