Two upcoming George Mason University men’s and women’s basketball games have been postponed, the Atlantic 10 league office announced Tuesday.
The men’s game scheduled for Dec. 30 at VCU has been postponed due to COVID-19 protocols within the Rams program.
In addition, the women’s game scheduled for Jan. 1 at UMass has been postponed due to COVID-19 protocols within the program.
In advance of conference play, the A-10 has revised its COVID forfeiture policy. Tuesday, in a previously scheduled athletics directors meeting, the group voted to approve a change regarding the postponement and rescheduling of men’s and women’s basketball games due to the nationwide spike in COVID-19 variant cases.
The A-10 medical advisory committee will meet Wednesday to review the newest CDC policy reducing the isolation days of asymptomatic vaccinated individuals from 10 to five days. This review will occur yielding to all local COVID protocols and medical guidelines within the conference footprint.
Under the revised A-10 COVID policy, games that cannot be played due to positive COVID-19 tests will be postponed and attempted to be rescheduled by the conference office. If a suitable reschedule date cannot be found, the game will be declared a no-contest. Conference standings and championship seeding will be based on an approved formula balancing team win-loss records with total number of contests completed.
If a team opts to not play the rescheduled contest, the game can be declared a forfeit by the league office. In addition, the conference also revised an earlier policy for requiring teams to complete conference games. The revision requires teams that have seven available scholarship student-athletes and one countable coach to compete in all conference contests.
Teams may also participate with less than seven available student-athletes. If a team elects not to play, despite having seven scholarship student-athletes and one coach available, that team will incur a forfeit and be given a loss in the league standings, and the opposing team will be granted a forfeit win.
A-10 institutions and basketball programs are committed to the health and safety of its student-athletes, coaches, administrators and fans, and will continue to follow state and local guidelines regarding vaccines and boosters, testing, quarantining and return to play.
The athletic directors also reaffirmed that the commissioner may choose to enact penalties, including a forfeit or a fine, on a program that does not meet the league code of conduct policies when games are being rescheduling.
This supersedes the forfeit policy that was put in place for all sports in the fall. Decisions regarding forfeit policies for spring sports will be made at a later date, as the league and its medical advisory committee continues to monitor the pandemic.
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