Home games come early

NJIT series postponed due to virus; Danes will play Maine

At last the University at Albany women’s basketball team will play at home, and it arrived a week earlier than anticipated.

Ualbany’s scheduled trip to the New Jersey Institute of Technology was postponed Thursday by the America East Conference, which has scheduled the Great Danes to play conference-leading Maine on Saturday and Sunday at SEFCU Arena. Both games will begin at noon.

All six of the Ualbany women’s games have been on the road. Because of previous postponements, the Danes weren’t scheduled to open at home until next weekend, when New Hampshire visits.

As a result of the changes, the Ualbany men’s team has moved its Sunday home game with NJIT from 3 to 5 p.m. to allow for sanitation of the arena.

The shakeup was created by a positive COVID -19 test within the Vermont women’s basketball program. Maine was scheduled to play this week at Vermont but will instead head to Albany. NJIT will play host to Hartford, which had its series against Maryland-baltimore County shelved because of COVID -19 issues in the UMBC program.

Maine and Ualbany were supposed to meet on Feb. 6 and 7 at SEFCU. That weekend likely will be used to reschedule one of the Danes’ previously postponed series. Ualbany (2-4 overall, 1-1 America East) has not played since Dec. 22, a 71-42 nonconference loss at Fordham, having had an America East series against Vermont and Stony Brook postponed because of a positive test within the Danes’ program.

After a 10-day quarantine, the Danes returned to practice Sunday.

“It’s been a difficult, challenging couple of weeks here,” coach Colleen Mullen said, “but also there’s so much to look forward to now that we’re back on the court. They’ve been practicing so hard, and with so many unknowns, we’re just hoping to stay healthy and play this weekend.”