ECU Puts Basketball On Pause Due To Multiple Covid-19 Cases

After the results from the latest COVID-19 tests and contact tracing, the ECU men's basketball program has paused all team-related activities including postponing their next two games.

“We were informed last night multiple individuals within our men’s basketball program tested positive for COVID-19,” ECU Director of Athletics Jon Gilbert said.

“The affected individuals are isolated and will receive daily monitoring from ECU Athletics medical staff. The decision was made to postpone our next two games due to the positive tests, contact tracing and subsequent quarantining of individuals. We will continue to work closely with our medical staff and follow their guidance on how we move forward.”

As a result, the Pirates’ games on Saturday, Jan. 16 against Temple and Wednesday, Jan. 20 at South Florida are being postponed.

"We probably expected it at some point. You see it thoughout the country and you expect it. Then when you have to deal with it, it's a little bit different obviously," ECU head coach Joe Dooley said on Thursday, "It's disappointing. The good thing is we have great medical care. We'll take good care of our kids and we'll move on once it's time to move on."

Dooley outlined the plan from here for the Pirates moving forward.

"We'll be down for a little bit. I think the biggest thing to see will be continue testing and see how the results continue to come in," Dooley told PirateIllustrated.com, "We've got a little bit of a game plan from there going on and then a lot of it is how the testing continues to go. If it goes one way we will do one thing and it goes another way we'll have an alternative plan. We're sort of at its mercy so we'll just go ahead and adjust and move on and try to do the best we can."

The American Athletic Conference will announce any further adjustments to ECU’s conference schedule once those are finalized, including rescheduled dates for previously postponed games versus Wichita State and Cincinnati.