There have been a ton of sports events canceled over the past year due to COVID-19 concerns, some at the last minute. But it’s certainly new and interesting to a game go down right around the opening national anthem. Scott Eisberg, the sports director for WCIV (an ABC affiliate in Charleston, SC), tweeted Tuesday night that that’s what happened during a Charleston Southern Buccaneers home basketball game against the University of South Carolina Upstate Spartans (which had been set for WatchESPN):
And that timing seems about right. Here’s what the USC Upstate MBB Twitter account sent out at 7:12 p.m. Eastern, shortly after the planned 7:00 p.m. tipoff:
Due to a positive test, tonight's game at Charleston Southern has been postponed to a later date. Makeup date TBD.
— USC Upstate Men's Basketball (@UpstateMBB) January 20, 2021
Heck, even a scores bot tweeted that the game had started.
[NCAAM] Game started, USC Upstate at Charleston Southern.
— CFB Scores Bot (@cfbscoresbot) January 20, 2021
Meanwhile, Kevin Bilodeau, the sports director at Charleston CBS affiliate Live Five, tweeted that these postponements happened just before tipoff:
Just minutes before tip off at Charleston Southern, tonight’s game against USC Upstate, as well as tomorrow’s game, have been postponed because of a positive COVID-19 test with the Spartans @Live5News pic.twitter.com/zsGdKJZt9l
— Kevin Bilodeau (@KevinLive5) January 19, 2021
In any case, this certainly led to a remarkable turnaround from “game” to “no game.”
[Photo via Kevin Bilodeau on Twitter]