NCAA cancels all winter and spring championship tournaments

In an official statement on Thursday, the NCAA has decided to cancel all remaining winter and spring championships in response to the public health threat of COVID-19 (coronavirus). This comes after the Pac-12 cancelled the remaining games in the men’s basketball tournament and schools across the country started to shut down their own events.

No March Madness in 2020. No College World Series later this year. It’s hard to argue with the logic but it is certainly a tough pill to swallow on a day with so many cancellations across the sports world.

“This decision is based on the evolving COVID-19 public health threat, our ability to ensure the events do not contribute to spread of the pandemic, and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time during this academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities.”

It’s also a tough way to end the careers of some talented players across every spring and winter sport. The Ivy League cancelled their spring sport season, they offered up a statement that said they’ll attempt to gain their players another year of eligibility due to the circumstances.

We can only hope that the NCAA will maintain that same level of sentiment towards their spring and winter student-athletes as well. It seems that an additional redshirt year for those affected the hardest is the least they could do to pay it forward.