Add another postponement to the list for the Nebraska men's basketball team. And throw in some light at the end of the tunnel as well.
As the Huskers continue to work their way through a COVID-19 outbreak in the program, the team announced Friday that its Jan. 30 home game against Penn State has been postponed.
The game marks the fifth consecutive contest NU has called off since going on pause prior to the Illinois game Jan. 13.
Last week, NU coach Fred Hoiberg announced he had tested positive for the virus along with seven of Nebraska's players. NU has had a total of 12 individuals in isolation or quarantine because of positive tests over the past two weeks.
The high number of positives triggered an automatic pause in all basketball activities because NU had reached the red/red category in the Big Ten's virus protocols for both team positivity rate and population positivity rate.
Those positives came on top of two players testing positive during summer workouts and another, freshman Eduardo Andre, testing positive just before the start of the season.
Hoiberg said Sunday he was experiencing symptoms but that his condition was starting to improve.
The Penn State postponement marks the sixth for Nebraska in Big Ten play, the most postponed games of any team in the conference.Â
Nebraska and the Big Ten will now have to find a way to try to make up those six games in about a 4½-week window to end the season, while hoping NU's opponents can stay healthy to allow the games to be played.
Just how might that look? Well, it will likely take a lot of shuffling by a lot of parties.
For example, Penn State — which had to postpone four games earlier this season — has played three games in the past five days, will play four games in a seven-day stretch, and six games in a 14-day period as it tries to get back on track.
Several Big Ten games were announced or shuffled shortly after NU's announcement. A Michigan-Penn State game was set for Jan. 27; the Nittany Lions will play Wisconsin on Jan. 30, while the Wisconsin-Maryland game originally scheduled for Jan. 30 was moved to Jan. 27.
In short, if the Huskers are to make up those six games, they're going to have to play a lot of basketball in a small time frame. They're also going to need the conference's other teams to be flexible.
The Huskers have a five-day window between the Feb. 3 Michigan State game and a Feb. 8 game at Minnesota, then either three or four days between each of the six games that follow those two. NU also has an entire week open between its Feb. 28 game against Rutgers and the March 7 finale at Northwestern.
The Big Ten Tournament is scheduled for March 10-14 in Chicago.
The Nebraska men's basketball team returned to full team workouts Sunday, a source confirmed, as the Huskers begin to make their way back from a nearly three-week COVID-19 pause.