Huskies ease in

Players cleared to start working out in pods amid team shutdown

UConn women can begin pod workouts despite new COVID-19 case.

Amid a 14-day pause of team activities, the UConn women’s basketball team has been cleared to begin working out in pods of three of four players, a team spokesperson said Saturday.

This week’s testing also revealed an additional positive COVID-19 test within the program but, due to contact tracing, the team’s modified quarantine and game schedule are as of now unaffected.

The small group workouts are the first steps in the team returning to the court after a Tier 1 member of the program — not a player or coach — tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, wiping out the first three games on the Huskies’ schedule and postponing the fourth.

As they were quarantining this week, players underwent additional testing Wednesday and

Friday, which came back negative and allowed all 11 of them to be cleared to start working out again this weekend.

Even if the players continue to test negative, the earliest the program would be able to resume full team activities would be Dec. 8, coach Geno Auriemma said Tuesday, giving the team a week of practice before its first game. The Huskies are currently slated to start the season with a conference matchup against Butler on Dec. 15.

“It’s a situation you’ve never been in,” Auriemma said about the stop-and-start his team is facing. “There’s never been a time in your coaching career where somebody says, ‘Hey, by the way, just when you think you’ve put your team together, and you’re on the brink of playing, you have to stop for two weeks and then start back up again and get ready to play a few days later. ... So we’re all kind of flying here without any instruments. We’re just kind of going by feel.”