NCAA cancels March Madness, winter and spring championships

By Steve Lansdale

AUSTIN, Texas — It is not an overstatement to suggest that Thursday, March 12, 2020, was like no other in the history of American sports.

The day started with the realization that National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver had suspended the season after it was announced that Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert had tested positive for the coronavirus that has dominated international headlines for more than week.

Initially, it appeared that college basketball would be played, albeit in arenas without fans. That changed Thursday when commissioners around the country started canceling conference tournaments[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] — the Big East tournament actually tipped off, with St. John’s and Creighton playing a half of their game before officials conferred and concluded that the prudent and wise decision would be to shut down the tournament entirely.

Conference tournaments around the country were called off. The National Hockey League suspended its season, as did Major League soccer and the XFL. Major League Baseball announced the start of its season would be delayed by at least two weeks, and there is little optimism that that deadline will be met. The PGA Tour cancelled the Players Championshp after the first round, and all tournaments until the Masters, which is scheduled to be played April 9-12 … and it’s very possible the cancellations won’t stop there.

College sports also took a massive hit while the only decision that could be made was made: universities around the country, including national marquee programs like Michigan, Ohio State and Notre Dame, and in-state programs like SMU, cancelled their spring football games.

Finally, NCAA President Mark Emmert made the decision many were expecting once events around the country started getting scratched off the calendar when he cancelled the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, as well as the championships for all winter and spring sports at all levels of competition.

When announcing the decision, the NCAA released the following statement: “Today, NCAA President Mark Emmert and the Board of Governors canceled the Division I men’s and women’s 2020 basketball tournaments, as well as all remaining winter and spring NCAA championships. This decision is based on the evolving COVID-19 public health threat, our ability to ensure the events do not contribute to spread of the pandemic, and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time during this academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities.”

Just like that, the college athletic year is effectively over. At the University of Texas, the teams most visibly affected by the decision are the men’s and women’s basketball teams, each of which held hopes, but certainly no guarantees, of being offered an invitation to participate in the NCAA tournaments known as March Madness.

In the wake of the NCAA’s decision to cancel all remaining championships for the year, UT took it a step further, doing away with all regular-season games until at least March 29 … and possibly beyond.

“With the Big 12’s recent directive suspending athletics activities until Sunday, March 29, all regular-season Longhorn Athletics competitions will be cancelled until that date, beginning with our baseball series on Friday,” UT vice president and athletic director Chris del Conte said in a statement released by through the athletic department. “In addition to in-season UT sports with current regular-season competition like baseball, golf, rowing, softball and tennis, this also will include the Texas Relays and spring soccer matches, and postpone a decision on the start of spring football practice until after the March 29 date.

“That was followed by an announcement from the NCAA that all winter and spring sports championships have been cancelled, which includes those upcoming in track and field, basketball and swimming and diving. This is a very fluid situation and one that presents great challenges. The health, safety and well-being of everyone involved is the number one priority and we will be having many discussions in the coming hours, days and weeks to determine what the next steps are. We appreciate everyone’s support and patience on this and will continue to provide updates as decisions are made.”
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