A slew of college basketball tournaments that were scheduled to take place this weekend have been postponed or canceled. The ACC, Big Ten, and SEC, and Big 12 were among the major conferences to shut down their respective tournaments before games began. The Big East announced at halftime of this afternoon’s Creighton/St. John’s contest that its tournament would also be canceled.
Here are the other conference tournaments which were nixed today, accompanied by links to the official announcements:
The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) is essentially the only Division I conference that has yet to formally announce the cancellation of its tournament, and it may just be a matter of time before that announcement comes.
It was less than 24 hours ago that the NCAA announced it would hold its 2020 March Madness tournament without fans in attendance. Now it seems increasingly unlikely that the event will take place at all.
Schools with major basketball programs, such as Duke and Kansas, have announced increased coronavirus measures restricting athletic events, while the ACC announced that it has suspended “all athletic-related activities,” including “participation in NCAA championships.” The Big Ten is likely headed in that direction too, according to Jeff Goodman of Stadium (Twitter link).
The potential cancellation of the remaining college basketball schedule will affect NBA teams’ preparations for the 2020 draft, as John Hollinger and Sam Vecenie of The Athletic write. However, this month’s tournament is just one of many pre-draft scouting opportunities that could be impacted.
As The Athletic’s duo explains, there’s still no word on whether events like the Nike Hoop Summit (early April), the Portsmouth Invitational (mid-April), and the combine (mid-to-late May) will go forward as planned. Of course, given the possibility that the NBA’s season will resume and run later than usual, we don’t even know for sure that the draft will happen in late June.
The Jordan Brand Classic, a high school All-Star game that features many of the nation’s most highly-recruited seniors, has been canceled, according to an announcement today.
Overreaction if I ever saw one! Madness!