Arizona is already having its season impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Monday the Wildcats announced that their season opener set for Wednesday evening against Northern Arizona has been canceled. The Lumberjacks have a positive coronavirus case in their program and because of that, plus contact tracing, the game cannot take place as scheduled.

The two programs will look into the possibility of rescheduling the game, but as it stands now UA will open its season Friday against Grambling State with a 3 p.m. MST tip off as part of the Southwest Classic multi-team event hosted by the Wildcats.

"The news of this cancellation is very disappointing to student-athletes, coaches and fans," the program said in a press release announcing the decision. "However, health and safety must remain our top priorities as we move forward this season."

Monday's news came as part of a group of programs announced their own changes because of COVID-19 related issues. Duke was forced to postpone its season opener against Gardner-Webb, also set for Wednesday, because of a similar scenario.

Meanwhile, Arizona State is making its way to Connecticut for a multi-team event without an opponent to play after Baylor withdrew from the Empire Classic because of a positive COVID-19 case for head coach Scott Drew.

It has been clear that the ongoing pandemic would impact the upcoming college basketball season, and that has already started before teams can even reach the starting line Wednesday.

The NCAA pushed back the original opening date for the season by two weeks to ensure teams would be prepared to play, but creating a nonconference schedule for each team has certainly been a challenge.

That's one reason UA head coach Sean Miller was happy to see his team reach the season opener this week despite having to play three games in five days to begin the year.

"I think it's a challenge that we're all excited to embrace simply because it's time to have an opportunity to play a game," he said last week. "Fall practices were different this year in that we had a group of players that really just appreciated being allowed to practice because it was taken away from all of us.

" ... I really don't know how the games are gonna go. You throw in the fact that there's no fans. We're all gonna be wearing masks. I would just say we're gonna do the best that we can. We've worked really hard to be ready. ... We're gonna show up ready to compete, but clearly I don't know what's gonna happen."

Now Miller's team will have to wait a few more days after Monday's news of the cancellation.

The Wildcats are only scheduled to leave Tucson once before the end of 2020 with a road game against Stanford on tap for Dec. 19, but outside of that the program made it a point to stay home in the early part of its schedule to help keep the players as safe as possible by limiting travel.

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