(KMOX/AP) - The biggest conferences in college sports all canceled their basketball tournaments Thursday because of the coronavirus, putting in doubt this month's NCAA Tournament — one of the biggest events on the American sports calendar.
Within minutes of each other, the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference announced that the remainder of their tournaments would not be played. All were preparing to play games in large arenas across the country, but with few people in the buildings.
There's no word from the leagues or NCAA yet on how this will effect the March Madness field that is supposed to be set on Sunday.
ALERT: Based on the latest developments and the continued spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), the Southeastern Conference today announced the cancellation of the remainder of the 2020 Men's Basketball Tournament in Nashville.
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) March 12, 2020The Big Ten Conference announced today that it will be canceling the remainder of the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament, effective immediately.https://t.co/MeQMNScXKQ
— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) March 12, 2020Among the other conferences that canceled tournaments were: the American Athletic Conference in Fort Worth, Texas; Conference USA in Frisco, Texas; the Sun Belt in New Orleans; the Western Athletic Conference in Anaheim, California; the Big Sky in Boise; the Southwestern Athletic Conference in Birmingham; and the Mid-American Conference in Cleveland at an arena that is home to the NBA's Cavaliers and is scheduled to be the site of NCAA men's tournament games next week.
The SEC tourney began play with two games on Wednesday and the University of Missouri was set to play Texas A&M on Thursday night. The Big 10 tourney was set to begin play on Thursday night with the University of Illinois' first game scheduled for Friday afternoon.
Saint Louis University was scheduled to begin play in and the A10 tournament on Friday.
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