March Madness canceled due to coronavirus

The 2020 NCAA tournament for both men and women has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The NCAA announced the decision to cancel the basketball tournaments along with the remaining winter and spring championship events on Thursday afternoon.

Here’s the NCAA’s official statement:

The conference tournaments that lead into the NCAA tournament were each individually canceled on Thursday. While fans were still in the stands at the ACC, Big Ten, and Big 12 tournaments on Wednesday, public pressure was mounting to cancel the tournaments after the NBA’s push to suspended the season following Rudy Gobert’s positive test for the virus.

Only one day earlier, the NCAA said it would limit attendance at all events to include only essential staff and limited family.

The rest of college basketball promptly followed suit by banning fans for Thursday. By late afternoon, every conference tournament and the NCAA tournament were all canceled because of the pandemic. We tracked the closing of each conference tournament below.

Before Thursday’s games, the Big Ten released a statement, saying it would play without fans in attendance. Now, it’s canceled.

A day after deciding to play without fans, the SEC has changed its decision and canceled the tournament.

After playing one half of its first game on Thursday (St. John’s vs. Creighton), the Big East tournament has been canceled.

Fans were allowed in the stands for the first two days of the ACC tournament, then on Wednesday, the league made the decision to limit attendance following the NCAA’s decision, and on Thursday, the tournament was canceled.

A day after announcing it’d limit teams to 125 tickets for staff and guests, the Big 12 is canceling its tournament.

After playing their first round on Thursday in front of fans in Kansas City, the Big 12 limited teams to only 125 tickets per team.

After playing the opening round of its tournament in front of fans in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the Pac-12 decided to limit attendance for the remainder of the tournament. Then on Thursday, it was canceled.

The Ivy League has decided to send its regular-season champions, Yale, to the NCAA tournament rather than play a conference tournament. This is the way the Ivy League used to always determine its champion, with the regular-season winner going to the NCAAs until the league adopted a conference tournament format in 2017.

Harvard, which was set to host the tournament, was going to be the No. 2 seed in the field even after beating Yale twice during the regular season. The Crimson also won the Ivy League regular season the last two years but failed to make the NCAA tournament after losing in the conference tournament.

Prior to the game, players and staff are having their temperatures checked and clearedby team doctors before tipoff, per Jeff Goodman.

As Stony Brook faces Hartford in the America East tournament, the school as suspended ticket sales for fans who have not already purchased them. Previously purchased ticket will be honored. The school has already released information on a precautionary quarantine initiative.

The First Four is hosted in Dayton every year. Cleveland is also hosting a regional this year. Will fans be allowed at games?