Christmas Break continues for Lisa Bluder and her Hawkeye basketball squad as Covid continues to wreak havoc on their schedule. Their December 30th match-up vs Penn State was recently canceled due to Covid issues with the Nittany Lions. Now their scheduled January 2nd home game vs Illinois has been postponed due to issues inside the Fighting Illini program.

The Big Ten Conference Office will attempt to find an open date to reschedule the game, but if not date becomes available the game will be counted as a “no contest” for both teams.

The Hawkeyes next scheduled game is set for January 6th at home vs Northwestern, however the Wildcats canceled their final non-conference game vs Oregon and postponed their December 31st matchup with Minnesota due to issues within their program.

If the game against Northwestern is played as scheduled, it will be a 15-day break between games, which eclipses their 14-day break when they had to cancel games due to their own Covid issues. On top of the extended break, the Hawkeyes are sitting on a blown 15-point lead and loss to IUPUI as their last game played.

“It’s tough, especially when they are all leaving to go home. They are all going their separate ways. I would rather be together after a situation like this,” said Bluder after their loss to the Jaguars. “Now we’re going to go have this break…I’m hoping that we’ll come back ready to go and ready to start fresh.”

The team returned from break and has been practicing since the 26th, but they are still sitting and waiting for their next game to be played.

The game vs Northwestern on the 6th will be at 7:00pm at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The game will be televised on the Big Ten Network.