SoCon will discuss North Carolina law

The Southern Conference has not been ready to make a determination about the location of its postseason basketball tournaments. That could be changing soon. On Monday, the NCAA announced it will move seven postseason tournaments from North Carolina due to a state law some believe can lead to discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The events moving include the opening weekend of the national men’s basketball tournament, games that were set for March 17 and 19 in Greensboro.

The conference initially wrote in a release to the Times Free Press that there are league meetings set for mid-October with athletic administrators and in November with its presidents and chancellors, at which time the conference will formulate a response to the NCAA’s decision regarding postseason events in North Carolina.

Only two of its members, Western Carolina and UNC Greensboro, are in that state.

“Southern Conference institutions are deeply committed to their communities,” commissioner John Iamarino said in the release. “Our basketball tournaments take place in Asheville, one of the most inclusionary communities in the nation, and with two institutions located in North Carolina, we routinely conduct regular-season contests and conference championships in that state. We expect a full discussion of these matters at the upcoming meetings.”

Then Wednesday happened. The Atlantic Coast Conference decided to move all neutral-site tournaments from North Carolina, prompting Iamarino to tell the Asheville Times-Citizen that there “needs to be a special meeting by the end of the week.

“My guess is we will be convening either in person or by conference call in the next coming days,” Iamarino told the Times-Citizen.

The state law, which is known as House Bill 2, requires transgender people to use restrooms at schools and government buildings corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates. It also excludes gender identity and sexual orientation from local and statewide anti-discrimination protections.

The SoCon has held its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in Asheville since 2012 and is scheduled to keep them there until 2021. The NCAA has no control over whether the league moves the tournament.

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.