An expected major winter storm already has some leagues reshuffling games this week

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One year after a winter storm forced postponements across U.S. sports, another major weather system is prompting a reshuffling of games this week and threatened to wreak havoc on the weekend schedule.

A storm that meteorologists say could rival the damage of a major hurricane is expected to bring snow, ice and frigid temperatures from New Mexico to New England starting Friday.

Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers canceled their annual Fan Fest event scheduled for Saturday due to the weather forecast for frozen precipitation in North Texas and “in the interest of safety for players, fans, and employees.”

The number of states where college games were being adjusted showed the large path of the approaching storm.

The Sun Belt Conference preemptively shook up its women’s basketball schedule, moving around the start times on several games from Thursday through Saturday. The American Athletic Conference also adjusted its weekend men’s and women’s basketball schedules, moving some games up to Friday.

North Carolina Central postponed two men’s and two women’s basketball games scheduled to be played from Thursday through Monday in Durham, North Carolina.

Appalachian State moved up its men’s basketball home game with Louisiana-Lafayette to Thursday morning and Marshall made its home game against Louisiana-Monroe a noon Thursday tipoff. Tennessee’s swim meet at Georgia and the USC Upstate women’s basketball game at Longwood were pushed to Friday from Saturday due to the forecast.

Among other women’s basketball games moved up several hours Saturday included No. 20 Princeton at Brown and North Florida at Eastern Kentucky, along with men’s games involving Towson at North Carolina A&T and Texas State at James Madison.

Rice adjusted tipoff times for its men’s and women’s basketball home games this weekend. The Rice men's home game against Tulsa originally scheduled for Sunday at 3 p.m. has been changed to Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Also, the Rice women's game against Tulane originally scheduled for Saturday at 2 p.m. has been moved up an hour to 1 p.m.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports