Due to a positive COVID-19 result from a Tier 1 member of the Binghamton men’s basketball team, the program has shut down its team activities temporarily. The news was first reported by Jeff Goodman of Stadium Thursday afternoon, and the athletics department confirmed the news to Pipe Dream shortly thereafter.

While the positive test resulted in the shutdown of team activities, the overall situation on campus would have resulted in a shutdown regardless. Once the University exceeded 100 total positive results in the two-week period beginning Nov. 7, all athletics activities were suspended, including the men’s and women’s basketball teams.

Binghamton becomes the ninth Division I men’s basketball program in New York to pause its activities due to a positive test result, joining Albany, Canisius, Iona, Marist, Niagara, Siena, St. Bonaventure and Syracuse. Cornell and Columbia are also not holding activities due to the Ivy League’s decision to not participate in the winter sports season, meaning that 11 of the 22 Division I programs in the state are inactive at the moment.

Upstate New York’s 12 programs have been hit particularly hard by this, with the only programs still in operation being Army, Buffalo and Colgate.

Of the 10 schools in the America East Conference (AE), Binghamton becomes the third to temporarily suspend team activities, joining Albany and Vermont. UMass Lowell had been shut down previously, but resumed practices on Thursday.

The official start date of the 2020-2021 NCAA basketball season is next Wednesday, Nov. 25. The BU programs had hoped to begin playing nonconference matchups around that date, but those plans are now on hold due to the shutdown. The teams are still assessing whether to play nonconference games in December, but nothing is expected to be finalized until closer to that time due to the uncertain nature of the situation.

Justin Zion contributed reporting to this article.