About 90 minutes before tip-off, the call was made to cancel Tennessee-Memphis. A COVID situation on the Memphis side had come up, as two players reportedly tested positive on Saturday morning. That same report stated that Memphis was down to “four or five” available players, due to the COVID protocols for unvaccinated players.
However, during the preseason, Penny Hardaway estimated that about 90 percent of his roster had been vaccinated, meaning that per those numbers, the Tigers should have had plenty of bodies to play on Saturday — assuming those vaccinated players could produce a negative test.