Xavier's men's basketball team received permission from the Big East Conference over the weekend to add a non-conference game to its schedule, multiple sources told The Enquirer, but those attempts to find an opponent on short notice for Tuesday were unsuccessful unless something miraculous happens at the 11th hour.
The Musketeers are healthy but haven't played a game since Dec. 21, 2021, at Villanova because of two consecutive cancellations due to COVID-19 issues at UConn and Georgetown.
Xavier's already played 11 non-conference games this season, which would be the maximum allowed in order to play a full 20-game Big East schedule.
The fact the Big East gave Xavier permission to add a game outside the league means it's safe to assume that a full 20-game conference schedule might not happen.
Xavier vs. UConn canceled: Musketeers lose two Big East games in one day
During a press conference on Dec. 27, 2021, the day before UConn was scheduled to visit the Musketeers, Xavier head coach Travis Steele was asked about potentially adding a non-conference game so that his team wouldn't have a 17-day break between games before heading to Butler on Friday.
"We've tried to get that clear through the Big East office and we have not gotten that cleared yet," said Steele. "We played our max number of games if we had 20 league games, right? You get 11 non-conference games, adds up to 31 total games.
"The rules have changed within our league ... there's no more forfeit policy. And I don't think anybody could foresee the (COVID) numbers exploding around us like they have two months ago. You got this whole new variant and it's going through and we're all trying to adjust.
"... Our guys want to play. We'll play anybody, anywhere. I want to get as many games as we possibly can. Hopefully, those are Big East games. We would love to play 20 Big East games, have a true champion, round-robin."
The Big East has already had eight games altered by COVID-19 through the first two weeks of conference play. At this moment, the league has been able to reschedule five games and is actively working on the others, which include UConn at Xavier and Xavier at Georgetown.
Seton Hall, DePaul, Georgetown, St. John's and UConn have all had to pause play since Big East action started.
There are parameters in place for rescheduling canceled league games. The Big East is handling them in the order they're canceled, but there are a few other important parts of the process.
The league will let a team play three games in one week, but that can't happen in back-to-back weeks and no teams will have games added the final week of the regular season ahead of the conference tournament.
That leaves seven weeks for the Big East to make changes to its schedule and the way things are currently going, it's likely the league will run into more disruptions, only further complicating matters for playing a full conference schedule.
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