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Pitt’s run in the ACC Tournament ended with a loss to NC State yesterday. While that might have been disappointing, it turns out that everyone’s ACC Tournament run is over.
On Thursday, the ACC, as well as the rest of the Power 5 conferences, all canceled their postseason tournaments due to the coronavirus/COVID-19. Other tournaments, including The American, A-10, Conference USA, MAC, Big East, and WAC, have also been canceled. In the case of the Big East Tournament, play was halted during the St. John’s-Creighton game.
The announcements among, at least the major conferences, seem to have been coordinated with them coming relatively close together. Other sports are also being affected. For example, the Pac-12 has halted all conference sporting events.
Obviously, those weren’t the only sporting events affected. On Wednesday, the NBA put a freeze on its entire season. The NHL followed suit and MLB suspended Spring Training activities. Other leagues in various sports have canceled, including soccer and tennis. More will undoubtedly follow.
Previously, it was also announced that the NCAA Tournament games would be played without fans. But frankly, news is spreading so fast that it’s not even known if the tournament will be played at all — especially with the complexities added of conference tournaments canceling.
From a Pitt perspective, obviously the basketball stuff doesn’t affect the team with no chance of playing in the NCAAs. But it will be interesting to see what happens with something like NCAA wrestling. The Panthers are a top ten wrestling program and had at least seven wrestlers participating in the tournament. While they were not likely to win a national championship in that sport, they were poised for a strong showing. How this affects the other ongoing sports, like baseball and softball, is unknown. And frankly, events not being canceled seem like they’ll ultimately be the outliers.
Scary times, obviously, and while you hate to see stuff like this, it’s being done in the interest of public health. Yeah, I’m just going to shut up and not going to argue with any of that.
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