Several in-state basketball games were impacted after the Sun Belt Conference announced changes to its covid-19 protocols Wednesday morning.
The University of Arkansas-Little Rock's women's basketball team canceled its first two league games -- previously scheduled for today at Georgia State and Saturday vs. Georgia Southern -- due to "the combination of the positive tests, contact tracing and subsequent quarantining of individuals within the program."
Georgia State's men's basketball program announced similar issues, resulting in the cancellation of the Panthers' two contests -- previously slated for tonight vs. Arkansas State and Saturday evening at UALR.
The Trojan men will still host Georgia Southern tonight at the Jack Stephens Center, and the Eagles will then play at ASU at 4 p.m. Saturday.
All Sun Belt games impacted by covid will not be rescheduled, per the league's modified policies. Thus, they'll be considered no-contests and won't count in the conference standings.
Going forward, Sun Belt games will not be played without the minimum threshold of seven student-athletes and one full-time coach unless a team chooses to play with fewer than the minimum number of players.
The league also adjusted its conference tournament seeding policy, announcing that overall conference winning percentage will determine the standings. However, if a team fails to play at least 80% of the average number of conference games played, they will be seeded at the bottom of the championship bracket.