One day after announcing that March Madness would proceed around the country with no fans in attendance, the NCAA announced on Thursday that the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, along with all winter and spring NCAA championships, have been canceled. 2020 will be the first year since a tournament was introduced to determine the men’s college basketball champion in 1939 that there will not be a championship tournament.
The announcement came hours after many major college conferences canceled their ongoing conference tournaments on Thursday. After the ACC tournament was called off minutes before the first game of the day was set to tip off, Duke University announced that all athletics activities have been suspended by the school. Kansas, which has the top men’s basketball team in the nation and would have entered the tournament as a likely top overall seed, also announced that athletics have been suspended.
College basketball fans are understandably upset, and the 2020 men’s college tournament was projected to be one of the most unpredictable we’ve ever seen. The cancellation of all winter and spring championships is heartbreaking for athletes in their senior years across the nation, but the collective health of the public needs to be made a top priority in such uncertain times.
