Six weeks away from the start of the season, James Madison put men’s basketball activities on hold Monday after a confirmed case of COVID-19 within the team.

“The James Madison men’s basketball team has received a confirmed, symptomatic positive test for COVID-19,” a statement released by the school read. “As a result of contact tracing and high-risk exposure associated with the team’s group workouts, the program will pause all team activities as all directly-affected student-athletes, staff and personnel enter a period of quarantine and/or isolation. All affected personnel will continue to undergo testing. Team activities will resume no earlier than October 25.”

A JMU athletics spokesperson confirmed to the Daily News-Record it was a player who tested positive, but declined to say if symptoms were mild or severe and said the school defines symptomatic as showing signs of COVID as listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC includes fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting and diarrhea among the symptoms of COVID-19.

The spokesperson also said to date no JMU athlete has been hospitalized related to the coronavirus.

The Dukes men’s and women’s basketball programs, which share facilities and often socialize together, returned to campus in July to begin offseason workouts.

Even as most other teams within the athletic department experienced starts and stops to their offseason conditioning programs after positive tests, both basketball teams operated continuously since the summer without a positive test until this week.

JMU women’s basketball coach Sean O’Regan told the Daily News-Record on Monday that his program had produced no positive COVID-19 tests and that everyone would go in for another round of testing Tuesday morning.

With the season scheduled to begin on Nov. 25, the Dukes had been practicing the NCAA-maximum eight hours per week on the court since September. JMU was scheduled to begin full practice sessions this week with a men’s basketball media day scheduled for Wednesday.

The news of the positive test comes after first-year JMU coach Mark Byington gave his team time off practice between Sept. 30 and Oct. 4. During that period many of the players went home to visit family before returning to campus last week.

“The reason I did that was, our guys have been here since July and our season is such a long season,” Byington told the DN-R last week. “I didn’t want my guys to fade in November or December because they hadn’t been home in six months. Especially if you are a freshman, you get here in July and you don’t see your family again until Christmas, that is a long stretch.”

The Dukes are tentatively scheduled to open the season Nov. 27 at home against Radford, but Byington previously said he hoped to add a game to begin the season on Nov. 25.