The ACC basketball tournament has been canceled due to concerns of coronavirus outbreak

Hours after commissioner John Swofford announced that the ACC men’s basketball tournament would still be played Thursday, league officials canceled the final three days of the tournament amid rapidly increasing concerns about the spread of COVID-19, the coronavirus disease.

The decision to cancel the tournament ended a surreal, unpredictable series that began Wednesday with the league’s signature event operating mostly as normal. By late afternoon, the conference had decided to play the final three rounds without spectators at the Greensboro Coliseum. But then, after the NBA suspended its season Wednesday night, and the Big 10, Southeastern and American conferences canceled their tournaments Thursday, the ACC decided to cancel the remainder of its tournament.

The ACC was pressured into canceling its tournament by Duke informing Swofford that it would not be attending Thursday’s quarterfinal game against N.C. State. Duke president Vincent Price told the Observer and N&O that the school is shutting down all athletics activities. [Read more of that exclusive story here]

Florida State, the No. 1 seed in the tournament, was given the championship trophy Thursday and Swofford said that if an NCAA tournament is played, the Seminoles would be the ACC’s automatic qualifier.

The conference had made precautions, from slightly adjusting media access Tuesday to the drastic decisions that followed today, and those were representative of the quickly evolving and rising concern surrounding the novel coronavirus, which in recent days and weeks has shut down parts of Europe and Asia.

Early on Wednesday, the possibility of canceling the ACC tournament did not seem plausible. By the final game of the day, a Syracuse victory against North Carolina in front of a half-full arena, the thought of the conference canceling its signature event did not seem so far-fetched.

This is the first time in the 67-year history of the ACC tournament that it has been canceled. Before Wednesday it had played on without interruption every year since 1953.

This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 12:15 PM.