Louisville basketball postpones third straight game

Just when it looked like things were starting to get back to normal for Louisville basketball, the program had another setback on Sunday. Per a release from the ACC, Louisville’s matchup with North Carolina State on December 16th has been postponed due to “positive tests, subsequent quarantining, and contact tracing within the Louisville men’s basketball team.”

This is the third consecutive reschedule for Louisville, following postponements against UNC Greensboro and Wisconsin. Obviously, this isn’t what you want to see as the team moves into the start of conference play. This setback comes after Louisville just returned to the floor on Thursday.

Chris Mack updates on positive tests

Head coach Chris Mack updated the local media this past week once the team was able to return back to practice saying:

“We’ve had both staff and players that have been infected. With the protocols of quarantining and isolating, depending on if you’re around somebody, is it direct contact, you guys all know the deal. But we’ve also had guys that have had COVID in the past, and they’re sort of exempt from that, so they’ve been able to get in the gym and workout on their own, and that’s a good part of our team to be quite honest.
Yesterday, and today, we’ve managed to have guys that weren’t direct contacts, along with former, what you’d call, COVID patients out on the floor. Tomorrow we’re going to return, and when I say return, we still won’t have everybody back. But with the guys that we have back, we’ll be conducting as full of practice as we can.”

The ACC release doesn’t provide clarity on whether this was due to the positive tests that led to extended time off or if there have been new tests recently.

Louisville’s next scheduled game is on December 22nd. All eyes, however, will be on the health of the squad heading into the big rivalry matchup against Kentucky. The Battle for the Bluegrass is on December 26th.

Louisville ranks 25th in the AP Poll after a 4-0 start.