WISCONSIN CANCELS GAME VS. PURDUE
Wisconsin canceled Saturday’s home game against Purdue, the second straight game the 10th-ranked Badgers have called off as COVID-19 cases within their team continue to rise.
School officials announced Tuesday that three more players and two additional staffers have tested positive since Saturday, bringing the program’s total number of active cases to 27. That includes 15 players and 12 staffers.
All team-related activities for Wisconsin remain paused indefinitely.
“I’m concerned with the health and safety of the guys,” Athletic Director Barry Alvarez said. “No one wants to be on that field any more than I do. But I’m not going to lose track of priorities.”
This marks the second consecutive week that Wisconsin has canceled a game due to the virus outbreak. The Badgers had been scheduled to visit Nebraska on Oct. 31. Neither game will be rescheduled.
The Purdue-Wisconsin matchup becomes the 38th game involving a Football Bowl Subdivision team to get postponed or canceled as a result of the pandemic.
Wisconsin’s 27 active cases all have arisen since Oct. 24, the day after Wisconsin’s season-opening 45-7 victory over Illinois. Ten players and 11 staffers have tested positive over the last seven days.
More college football
Texas starting running back Keaontay Ingram will miss the Longhorns’ game Saturday vs. West Virginia, coach Tom Herman said on Tuesday.
Ingram, a junior who is the team’s second-leading rusher, suffered a high-ankle sprain in last week’s upset win at Oklahoma State.
Death
Eddie Johnson, the twotime All-Star for the Atlanta Hawks whose career was shortened by arrests which led to a ban from the NBA and life sentence in prison, has died. He was 65.
Johnson passed away on Oct. 26. His death was confirmed Tuesday by Rocker-Cusack Mortuary in Leesburg, Fla.
Johnson was a third-round pick from Auburn by the Hawks in the 1977 NBA Draft. He became an immediate contributor and then a starter for the Hawks.
Due to his explosive f irst step, Johnson earned the nickname “Fast Eddie” and averaged 15.1 points in 10 NBA seasons.
• Nancy Darsch, who guided the Ohio State women’s basketball team to the 1993 title game and went on to coach in the WNBA, has died. She was 68. She had Parkinson’s disease and died Monday in her hometown of Plymouth, Mass.
• Don Talbot, the foundation director of the Australian Institute of Sport and one of the country’s greatest coaches, has died. He was 87.
Boxing
Alexander Povetkin’s rematch with Dillian Whyte for the WBC interim heavyweight title was postponed after the Russian boxer tested positive for the coronavirus.
Promoter Eddie Hearn said the fight on Nov. 21 in London could not go ahead because of Povetkin’s positive test but it would be rescheduled for January.
Povetkin, an Olympic gold medalist with a 36-2-1 pro record, knocked out Whyte (27-2) in their first fight in Aug ust. Povetkin’s only losses came when he fought for heavyweight titles against Wladimir Klitschko in 2013 and Anthony Joshua in 2018.
Also
Ugo Humbert upset second-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas following a hard-fought contest of more than three hours to reach the third round at the Paris Masters.
The 34th-ranked Frenchman won 7-6 (4), 6-7 (6), 7-6 (3) for one of the biggest wins of his young career. Humbert was outside the top 700 three years ago and only started playing regularly on the main Tour last season.
• The Detroit Red Wings signed forward Anthony Mantha to a four-year contract with an average annual value of $5.7 million. Mantha, 26, has played f ive seasons in the NHL — all with Detroit. He scored 16 goals with 22 assists last season, ranking third on the team with 38 points. That was despite playing only 43 games because of injury problems.
• Defending champion Primoz Roglic won the individual time trial at the Spanish Vuelta to retake the overall lead from Richard Carapaz.
• Golfer Harr y Higgs has tested positive for the coronavirus and withdrew from the Houston Open. Higgs was replaced in the f ield by Kramer Hickok.