ACC tournament will keep fans out of its remaining games amid coronavirus outbreak
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The ACC will close the remainder of its men’s basketball tournament to spectators, beginning with Thursday’s quarterfinals, ensuring that games will be played in a mostly empty Greensboro Coliseum amid the emerging threat of the spread of COVID-19, the coronavirus disease.
The decision to close the tournament to fans, announced Wednesday night, came hours after the NCAA announced that its men’s and women’s tournaments would also be played without spectators, and with “only essential staff and limited family” in attendance. Those tournaments begin next week, and the Greensboro Coliseum is a first- and second-round site in the men’s tournament.
The decisions to close major, regional and national sporting events to fans is believed to be unprecedented. Those decisions come as a decisive response to a public health crisis whose severity has come into focus in recent days, forcing businesses and organizations to take drastic protective measures in attempt to limit the spread of disease.
As recently as late Wednesday afternoon, there was no indication that the ACC would close the Greensboro Coliseum to spectators. The conference had announced, on Tuesday, its plans to hold the tournament as scheduled, outside of minor changes to postgame media availability. The NCAA’s announcement, which came at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, spurred the ACC into action.
The conference made its decisions, it said in a statement, “in light of the rapidly changing landscape regarding COVID-19, the latest developments nationally from health authorities and today’s announcement by the NCAA COVID-19 Advisory Panel.” That panel implored the NCAA to hold its basketball tournaments without fans present.
After Wednesday, three rounds of the ACC tournament remain. There are four quarterfinal games on Thursday, two semifinals on Friday night and then the championship game on Saturday night. All will be played, according to the ACC, “with only essential tournament personnel, limited school administrators and student-athlete guests, broadcast television and credentialed media members present.”
The ACC’s announcement ended hours of speculation with a result that seemed inevitable, after the NCAA announced that its tournaments would go on without fans. Mark Emmert, the president of the NCAA, said in a statement that the organization based its decision “on the current understanding of how COVID-19 is progressing in the United States.”
“This decision is in the best interest of public health, including that of coaches, administrators, fans and, most importantly, our student-athletes,” Emmert said.
Not long after the NCAA released its statement, the ACC announced in a post on Twitter that its two tournament games on Wednesday night, which were scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and approximately 9:30 p.m., would “proceed as planned.” Fans were still allowed into the night session Wednesday for games between Boston College and Notre Dame and North Carolina and Syracuse.
Conference officials met throughout Wednesday afternoon. The ACC’s decision to close the tournament to fans came not long after the Big 12 Conference announced a similar decision for its conference tournament. The Big Ten followed. Both the Mid-American and Big West conferences announced Tuesday that their conference tournaments would be played without spectators, and the Ivy League canceled its men’s and women’s tournaments.
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This story is developing and will be updated.
