UConn-Providence canceled for Saturday

The UConn men’s basketball team’s first trip to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in nine years will have to wait.

As expected, the Huskies scheduled bout with Providence on Saturday at 2 p.m. has been canceled due to COVID issues within the Friars’ program. The Big East will try to reschedule the game at a later date.

Providence had to cancel its game against Creighton on Tuesday after arriving flying out to Omaha, Nebraska for the road game. Two members of the PC program remain in Omaha, unable to join the rest of the team’s return to Providence.

Providence had not had to reschedule a game due to COVID issues within its own program at all over the past two seasons until now. UConn has already rescheduled two games to do its own COVID issues for later this season.

The proximity between UConn and PC would seem to make a reschedule more likely. However, the league’s rule that a team can’t play three games in a week in consecutive weeks could complicate things. Also, PC’s second “bye” week is the final week of the regular season, and as of now, teams aren’t allowed to schedule make-up games for that week, per a source.

It is also unlikely that UConn could replace the Providence game with a different opponent this weekend, since the Huskies’ scheduled is already filled at 31 games.

UConn’s next game is Tuesday, a make-up game from a canceled New Year’s Day game with Butler. The Huskies then fly out to Indianapolis to play Butler again on Jan. 20.