Just 48 hours into 2021, 2020 peeked its little head in and made an appearance yet again.
COVID-19 has struck the St. John's Red Storm program this afternoon, as the team was forced to postpone its first game of the new calendar year, against DePaul. The game was supposed to be played inside Carnesecca Arena for a noon matinee. The Red Storm have been able to escape the COVID-19 bug till today.
DePaul was pulled off the floor from warmups just before 11:00 a.m. (EST), but no appearance from the Johnnies due to the aforementioned reason, we're just learning.
The Red Storm men's program isn't the first to shut down operations for two weeks, as the women's basketball program had a staff member test positive for the novel coronavirus just prior to the Christmas holiday.
The opposition, DePaul, has only played three contests this year. One against Western Illinois, and a pair of conference games against Providence, and UConn.
It is unclear how long either program will be on a pause for. If the Red Storm do in fact go in COVID-19 pause, they will not be able to play a contest until January 18, inside Gampel Pavillion at UConn, unofficially.
New York Post's Zach Braziller reported shortly after the announcement from the athletic communications department, that his sources reported that there could be "testing irregularities" and that a pause is not a definite as of Saturday afternoon.
St. John's was set to play Villanova on Wednesday, December 30, before a request from Jay Wright and the Villanova program came about for a mental rest. Both programs, and the league agreed for a reschedule. Villanova, now has COVID-19 related issues, where aforementioned head coach Jay Wright is the victim.
The Red Storm have not played since the December 20th victory over Georgetown inside Carnesecca Arena, where they took down their arch rival by a score of 93-84.
St. John's, as of now, are still set to travel on a two-game road trip beginning on Wednesday, January 6, when they visit Xavier, and Saturday, January 9, at 11/11 Creighton.