Men's Basketball

ACC tournament to continue without fans, other conferences cancel

Jordan Phelps | Staff Photographer

All ACC school presidents and athletic directors agreed to move forward with the men's basketball tournament, the commissioner said.

By Josh Schafer

UPDATED: March 12, at 12:02 p.m.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament is continuing as scheduled, league commissioner John Swofford announced on Thursday. 

“Right now we are ready to tip the afternoon session,” Swofford said. “We want to provide an opportunity to continue to compete for our players.”

The situation is “fluid” and is being monitored at an hourly rate, the commissioner said. The decision was made with “complete consensus” among school presidents and athletic directors, Swofford said. Syracuse Athletics could not be reached for immediate comment. 



“Hopefully we won’t have to make another decision in the next few days, but we will if we have to do so,” Swofford said. 

Shortly after Swofford’s press conference ended, the Big Ten, Big 12, Southeastern and American Athletic Conference canceled their men’s basketball tournaments.

“There was no way we could defend playing this,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco told Yahoo Sports.  “We wanted to be proactive in protecting our student athletes.”

During Syracuse’s 81-53 win over North Carolina on Wednesday night, the NBA suspended its season and other NCAA teams sat quarantined inside locker rooms at other conference tournaments. Speculation immediately arose as to what’s next for the ACC tournament, which decided before SU’s win that limited fans would be allowed inside the Greensboro Coliseum for the remainder of the tournament. 

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Swofford said the main difference between the ACC and NBA’s decision is that an NBA player tested positive for coronavirus. No NCAA men’s basketball player has reportedly been tested as of Thursday morning.

The conference tournament will continue without fans starting with Florida State and Clemson. Tip-off is set for 12:30 p.m. All games will be played with “essential tournament personnel, limited school administrators and student-athlete guests, broadcast television and credentialed media members present,” a press release from the conference from Wednesday said.  

No. 6-seed Syracuse will once again finish out the day of games playing against No. 3-seed Louisville at 9 p.m. Orange players acknowledged the possibility of playing in an empty gym following Wednesday’s win. 

“Obviously it’s a different feel,” Buddy Boeheim said. “It’s going to be much different. Our fans are great on the road. Definitely a setback, we need to treat it like another game, the same thing.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Senior staff writer Nick Alvarez contributed to this report.





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