On Friday, the CAA announced that the away series between Northeastern and James Madison University will be postponed and rescheduled for a later date. 

The women’s basketball 2020-2021 schedule has been peppered with numerous COVID-19 postponements, usually due to other teams’ positive tests. This time, NU had to make the call to James Madison about a potential case within its team. 

“The women’s basketball team was departing for CAA play after testing three times that week, all negative. As we started to travel, one of the student-athletes exhibited symptoms and due to our protocols we had to turn around and treated it as a positive with further testing,” said Jeff Konya, athletic director at NU. 

The Huskies, who are coming off two consecutive road wins against Hofstra University on Jan. 9 and Manhattan College on Jan. 19 will not play again until next weekend with a home series against Drexel University.

This postponement marks the third time this new year that games have had to be rescheduled, the earlier cancellations against Elon University to open the season and the College of Charleston last weekend. Neither of these weekend series has been rescheduled for a later time. 

Previously in December, several COVID-19 outbreaks led to many NU programs postponing their schedules and practices, including women’s hockey, men’s hockey, men’s basketball and women’s basketball. This postponement translated to the 0-5 start of the season as NU had to overcome the hurdle of not having enough time to practice between the end of the postponement and the start of their season. 

Although the Huskies played as recently as Tuesday, they have had stretches at a time going without a game. Some stretches have lasted as many as 10 days. 

These starts and stops in a season make it hard for any sort of continuity from game to game. Especially for hot players such as sophomore forward Mide Oriyomi who has hit double digits five games in a row and earned herself two double-doubles this season. 

The women’s basketball team has since been tested and has been cleared to play their next weekend series, Konya said, with no positive tests among the players or the staff.

With three weekend series to reschedule as of now, the Huskies will finish the rest of their CAA play against Drexel University, University of Delaware, Towson University, UNCW and William & Mary over the next five weekends. 

The Huskies are currently 7th in CAA standings with a 2-5 overall record above Charleston and UNCW.