The Arizona State women’s basketball team forfeited games Friday at No. 10 Utah and Sunday at Colorado because the Sun Devils said they didn’t have enough healthy players.
“We came to the conclusion after meeting with our doctors and medical staff we will not be making the trip to Utah and Colorado this weekend,” Arizona State coach Natasha Adair said in a statement. “We understand the games will be forfeited, but the reality is there was no decision to be made. With few healthy scholarship players, time to heal is our only option. Our plan is to get our team healthy over the course of this week and be ready when we host Arizona Jan. 22.”
Both games were forfeited under Pac-12 Conference rules and considered league victories for Utah and Colorado, but will not affect the teams’ overall records.
Utah and Colorado are now 4-1 in the conference. Colorado (13-3 overall) beat the Utes 77-67 on Friday to hand Utah (14-1) its first loss of the season.
Arizona State (7-9) drops to 0-7 in the Pac-12.
“We feel terribly for our team that wants to compete, but due to the medical circumstances we are not able to,” Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson said in a statement. “Admittedly this is a very unusual situation, one that requires us keeping the health of both injured and healthy players as the main focus.”
Another Division I women’s team, No. 4 UConn, was forced to postpone a game against DePaul this past weekend because it did not have enough healthy players, but the Huskies have yet to forfeit any games.
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AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25