Photo courtesy of Nevada Athletics. Nevada men’s basketball bench celebrate as a teammate scores against rival Boise State in Feb. 2021. The team did not play for 19 days due to positive COVID-19 cases.

For the past three weeks, men’s and women’s basketball teams have postponed games due to coronavirus related concerns on the Nevada side. Most of the games have been rescheduled and canceled games will be declared as “no contest”.

The delays occurred as the men were riding a four game win streak after defeating rivals UNLV and Boise State. The men’s team was forced to push back matches against San Jose State and Colorado State. The women have canceled their contests against San Jose State, Colorado State and postponed their series versus Air Force. 

The men’s team had traveled to San Jose State for their two game series against the Spartans when it was found that one member of the group had tested positive for the virus on Feb. 12. The team then returned to Reno and began to isolate themselves. 

On the women’s team, a false positive from a rapid test caused the delay against Air Force. Due to the testing protocol followed by Nevada Athletics, a secondary PCR test was conducted which came back negative. Nevada was originally scheduled to play the Falcons in December 2020 but postponed until 2021 due to positive cases on the Falcon’s team. 

A previously scheduled make-up game against San Jose State on March 3 has also been canceled because of positive test results on the Spartan’s side. Nevada will play Colorado State on March 5 and the women will now travel to Air Force on March 3 and 4.

Games that were originally postponed were likely canceled because of the limited time before the conference championship tournament. 

After two rounds of negative test results, the Wolf Pack traveled to Utah State on Feb. 26 and Feb. 28 marking the men’s first game in 19 days. The men lost both games to the Aggies, falling short 75-72 and 87-66 respectively. 

The women’s team returned to action with a strong 63-40 win against Utah State on Feb. 24 and went on to sweep the Aggies in a 73-60 victory on Feb. 25.

In November, the women’s team had to cancel their first match of the season against San Francisco because of contact tracing protocols. The game was not rescheduled.

The Mountain West Conference women’s basketball championship will be held on March 7-10 in Las Vegas followed by the men’s championship from March 10-13.  

The athletic department has not disclosed the identities or number of positive cases among the basketball teams. 

Madeleine Chinery can be reached at mchinery@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @mchinery6