Tennessee basketball: One athlete tests positive for COVID-19

One men’s Tennessee basketball Volunteers athlete has tested positive for COVID-19.

Jeremy Pruitt said on Thursday that Tennessee football still had no athletes test positive for coronavirus, which was big news for Rocky Top. Well, just one day later, the news wasn’t so great for the Tennessee basketball program.

According to Grant Ramey of GoVols247, one male athlete reported a positive COVID-19 test. Ramey reports Tennessee sports information director Tom Satkowiak said that the one test came after testing several “domestic” male and female members of the UT men’s and women’s basketball program.

Members of the 2020 recruiting class, Jaden Springer, Keon Johnson and Corey Walker, along with transfer forward E.J. Anosike arrived on campus Monday. International players Santiago Vescovi and Uros Plavsic had not yet returned at the time of that report.

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Still, Tennessee basketball could have had more players test positive. One player across all three sports at this stage is a lot better than other SEC schools. Satkowiak said a plan was already in place to deal with such athletes who have a positive test and that the plan is being enacted.

When it came to the football program, there was one graduate assistant who tested positive, according to Pruitt. So it’s safe to say there have been two positive tests within the athletic department overall, but there has only been one positive test among the athletes.

Of course, not everybody in the program is back yet, so there is the potential for more tests to come in the future. But for now, it’s just one, and it could be a heck of a lot worse. Satkowiak said that the university is encouraged that its policy works.

The school has numerous guidelines and requirements to keep the athletes safe, and those are all in place right now as well. Tennessee basketball obviously has a lot of hype entering 2020-2021, and its players getting back to campus has been a bit part of the storyline on Rocky Top.