Rest of ACC Tournament Canceled, Florida State Named ACC champion

ACC Men's Basketball Tournament - Quarterfinals

GREENSBORO, N.C. (WTVD) -- The rest of the ACC Tournament has been canceled.

The final three days of the tournament was officially canceled around 12:15 p.m. on Thursday. Florida State, the tournament's No. 1 seed and regular-season champion, will represent the league as ACC champion.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford held a press conference Thursday morning to explain his decision to continue the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament.

"We're in a very fluid situation. Obviously uncharted territory for us and for you as well I assume. It changes daily, it did change weekly at one point in time. It changes daily now, and may well be changing hourly. Right now we are ready to tip the afternoon session," Swofford said.

"We want to provide an opportunity to compete in this tournament for our players. Our understanding and belief is that that is what they would want," Swofford said.

The SEC, Big Ten, Big XII, WAC, MAC, Conference USA and AAC have canceled their conference tournaments.

"Over the past two to three weeks, we as a league have been in almost constant conversations with the health authorities locally and with the state of North Carolina, with the CDC, and with the NCAA. Those conversation and the advice that we have been given has changed along the way--as you well know. We try to make the best decisions that we make, based on the best information that we can get," Swofford said.

Wednesday night was an unprecedented moment in sports.

With rising fear surrounding COVID-19, the NCAA announced that the men's basketball tournament would beplayed without fansin the stands. Likewise, the ACC decided to do that for the remaining games in its tournament.

But then everything changed.

An NBA player for the Utah Jazz tested positive for COVID-19.The NBA prompted suspended gamesand announced that the season too was suspended.

On the heels of that, other leagues are reconsidering their decisions.

ESPN analyst and former Duke Basketball star Jay Bilas said he saw no way the NCAA could continue to allow amateur players to compete when doing so too dangerous for the professional players in the same sport.


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