A positive test means Towson game canceled
The Maryland men’s basketball team’s home game against Towson on Tuesday has been canceled because of a positive COVID-19 test among the Tigers’ Tier 1 support staff personnel.
Maryland and Towson announced Monday in separate news releases that the cancellation was due to Big Ten Conference policy and “out of an abundance of caution.” Towson said that no players or coaches tested positive in the latest round of tests. The program also said that the “status of games in the future will be determined later.”
It’s the second cancellation for the Terps in the young season. Maryland had scheduled Towson after the Terps’ game with Monmouth, set for the same day, was canceled last Wednesday because of a positive COVID-19 test within the Hawks’ program.
Since the season started Nov. 25, several programs around the country have already been forced to postpone, cancel or reschedule matchups because of COVID-19 outbreaks, including some multi-team events at college campuses. The Terps have not allowed fans at Xfinity Center this season, and during games the typical bench setup has been scrapped for seats spread apart to promote social distancing while coaches wear masks.
“I’ll use the word unique instead of weird,” Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said after a season-opening win over Old Dominon. “Not shaking hands with the coaches, you’re just waving at them. We were so messed up at starting lineups, our guys didn’t know if they were allowed to touch each other. They didn’t huddle, they would normally huddle after starting lineups.”
Turgeon said before the season that COVID-19 spread through the team in late August and early September, prompting the team to miss a few weeks of practices.
“We had a few members of our team catch it and they’ve done all the testing all the heart MRIs and all that stuff,” Turgeon said. “And we feel good about it, everybody’s healthy and doing great. And, you know, we’re just gonna try to keep it out of our program but we went through it.”
Maryland (3-0), which received nine votes in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll, is set to host George Mason at 3 p.m. on Friday. The Terps defeated Old Dominion in their season opener Wednesday and beat Navy on Friday and Mount St. Mary’s on Sunday in a multi-team event at the Xfinity Center.
Towson (0-3) began the season with losses to then-No. 4 Virginia, San Francisco and Buffalo, all played at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut.