UPDATE: Alabama basketball will no longer play Colorado State on Tuesday, Dec. 21 due to COVID-related concerns within the Rams’ program, the university announced Friday night.
Alabama will seek an alternate opponent for the C.M. Newton Classic, which is set for a 6 p.m. CT tip in Legacy Arena at the BJCC in Birmingham, Ala.
Cancellations due to COVID-19 have been on the rise across college basketball, and Alabama could soon be feeling the effects.
Friday, Colorado State’s basketball team announced that due to COVID-19 concerns it would be unavailable to travel for its game against Tulsa scheduled for Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas. Colorado State’s announcement also included that the status of future games, including Tuesday's scheduled game against Alabama, will be determined at a later date. The No. 6-ranked Crimson Tide is scheduled to take on the No. 23-ranked Rams on Tuesday at 6 p.m. CT inside Birmingham’s Legacy Arena in the C.M. Newton Classic.
During his Friday press conference, Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats said he did not have any information about the status of Tuesday’s game but stated that he planned to call Colorado State head coach Niko Medved later in the day.
“Obviously if it’s somebody in their program that has it and it’s a bunch of people having to quarantine, that would probably affect the deal,” Oats said. “It’s hard to tell with this. Sometimes it’s them, sometimes it’s the opponent. It’s just hard to tell. I have no other information other than on our end, we want this game played really badly.
Oats said his team has not had a COVID-19 case since the beginning of school while indicating that all his players are eligible for booster shots and that the program was taking several precautions toward the virus.
“On our end, we’ve done everything we possibly can to keep COVID out of our program and done a pretty good job with it,” Oats said. “We just kind of anticipated not having many issues, and now that there are, we probably do need to come up with some plans on different things.
“On this one, I don’t have any contingency plans in my mind. We’re going to hopefully play this game and if we get word otherwise, we’ll have to talk through what we’re going to do.”
Alabama (8-2) is coming off its worst performance of the season as it lost 92-78 at Memphis this past Tuesday. The Tide will host Jacksonville State on (5-5) on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. CT inside Coleman Coliseum before wrapping up the pre-conference portion of their schedule against Colorado State (10-0) on Tuesday.
“Regardless of what comes after this game tomorrow, this is a huge game based off our performance at Memphis,” Oats said. “We need to get back to who we are. We were really good last year and we were really good here at times last year because of how hard we played, how unselfish we were, how much we played the game the right way. We need to get back to that regardless who the opponent is and who we’ve got coming after them because that’s just who we need to be.
“... And if it’s the last game before conference — I don’t anticipate it being that. I anticipate us play on Tuesday. But if it is, we need to have a great game going into [conference play]. If we play on Tuesday, we need to have a great game going into Tuesday because Colorado State’s really good.”
Alabama will seek an alternate opponent for the C.M. Newton Classic, which is set for a 6 p.m. CT tip in Legacy Arena at the BJCC in Birmingham, Ala.
Cancellations due to COVID-19 have been on the rise across college basketball, and Alabama could soon be feeling the effects.
Friday, Colorado State’s basketball team announced that due to COVID-19 concerns it would be unavailable to travel for its game against Tulsa scheduled for Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas. Colorado State’s announcement also included that the status of future games, including Tuesday's scheduled game against Alabama, will be determined at a later date. The No. 6-ranked Crimson Tide is scheduled to take on the No. 23-ranked Rams on Tuesday at 6 p.m. CT inside Birmingham’s Legacy Arena in the C.M. Newton Classic.
During his Friday press conference, Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats said he did not have any information about the status of Tuesday’s game but stated that he planned to call Colorado State head coach Niko Medved later in the day.
“Obviously if it’s somebody in their program that has it and it’s a bunch of people having to quarantine, that would probably affect the deal,” Oats said. “It’s hard to tell with this. Sometimes it’s them, sometimes it’s the opponent. It’s just hard to tell. I have no other information other than on our end, we want this game played really badly.
Oats said his team has not had a COVID-19 case since the beginning of school while indicating that all his players are eligible for booster shots and that the program was taking several precautions toward the virus.
“On our end, we’ve done everything we possibly can to keep COVID out of our program and done a pretty good job with it,” Oats said. “We just kind of anticipated not having many issues, and now that there are, we probably do need to come up with some plans on different things.
“On this one, I don’t have any contingency plans in my mind. We’re going to hopefully play this game and if we get word otherwise, we’ll have to talk through what we’re going to do.”
Alabama (8-2) is coming off its worst performance of the season as it lost 92-78 at Memphis this past Tuesday. The Tide will host Jacksonville State on (5-5) on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. CT inside Coleman Coliseum before wrapping up the pre-conference portion of their schedule against Colorado State (10-0) on Tuesday.
“Regardless of what comes after this game tomorrow, this is a huge game based off our performance at Memphis,” Oats said. “We need to get back to who we are. We were really good last year and we were really good here at times last year because of how hard we played, how unselfish we were, how much we played the game the right way. We need to get back to that regardless who the opponent is and who we’ve got coming after them because that’s just who we need to be.
“... And if it’s the last game before conference — I don’t anticipate it being that. I anticipate us play on Tuesday. But if it is, we need to have a great game going into [conference play]. If we play on Tuesday, we need to have a great game going into Tuesday because Colorado State’s really good.”
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