Illinois-Michigan basketball game next week will be postponed, reports say, as the Wolverines extend their athletic department pause due to COVID-19 issues
An upcoming showdown between the Big Ten’s top two men’s basketball teams apparently won’t take place — at least not as scheduled.
No. 4 Michigan’s Feb. 11 game against No. 12 Illinois will be postponed, MLive.com and Rivals.com reported Wednesday morning, because Michigan is extending the pause of its athletic department.
Michigan initially shut down all sports activity for two weeks because of a recommendation from the state health department after the university reported several cases of the COVID-19 B.1.1.7 variant within the athletic department. The Illinois game was scheduled to be the Wolverines’ first game back.
The Illini (12-5, 8-3) are one game behind Michigan (13-1, 8-1) in the Big Ten standings. The Wolverines haven’t played since Jan. 22.
Illinois plays No. 19 Wisconsin on Saturday in Champaign.
Unless Illinois finds a makeup game to replace Michigan, it will go 10 days without a game before facing Northwestern on Feb. 16.
The Illini have had other schedule disruptions because of COVID-19 issues with opponents. Coach Brad Underwood said he aggressively searched for a replacement when Illinois could not play Michigan State on Jan. 23 because of COVID-19 cases within the Spartans program. Underwood said other teams were already scheduled to play or did not meet Big Ten testing requirements.
The Illini endured a 10-day gap between playing Penn State on Jan. 19 and Iowa last Friday. Illinois won both games and has a three-game winning streak after beating Indiana 75-71 in overtime Tuesday night.
