Ivy calls off tournament
Regular-season champs (Yale men, Princeton women) head for NCAAs
Fears of COVID-19 cause Ivy League to cancel postseason tournament.
The Ivy League canceled its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments Tuesday and two other Division I conferences announced they will restrict fan access to their postseason games because of concerns about the spread of COVID-19.
The Ivy League’s fourteam tournaments were scheduled to be played Friday through Sunday at Lavietes Pavilion in Cambridge, Mass. Instead,the league awarded automatic NCAA tournament bids to the regular-season champions, the Princeton women and Yale men.
Later Tuesday, the MidAmerican Conference said it was implementing a restricted attendance policy at its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in Cleveland this week.
That came on the heels of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recommending that all indoor sporting events in the state be played without spectators on site.
The Big West said its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in Southern California will be played without spectators. Most of those game will be played at the Honda Center in Anaheim.
The Ivy tournaments are the first at the Division I basketball level to be canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Conference tournaments have been going on all over the country since last week at venues big and small. Most of the biggest conferences, such as the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, begin their men’s tournaments this week at large arenas in major cities.
The NCAA men’s and women’s Division I tournaments begin next week.
The NCAA responded quickly to the Ivy League’s announcement, saying it planned to play its games at the scheduled sites with no adjustments to fan access, but is monitoring the situation.
The first four games of the NCAA men’s tournament are scheduled to be played in Dayton, Ohio, and first and second-round games are scheduled for Cleveland March 20 and 22.
Nebraska
The Cornhuskers are turning to its football team for some help in the Big Ten basketball tournament by adding two football players — quarterback Noah Vedral and offensive tackle Brant Banks — to the roster for the conference tournament that begins Wednesday in Indianapolis.
ESPN reported that both players will be available to play in No. 14-seeded Nebraska’s opener against No. 11 Indiana.
Vedral, a sophomore, played in six games (two starts) for the Cornhuskers football team this past season. According to the school, he was a four-year basketball player at Bishop Neumann High in Wahoo, Neb., leading it to three C-1 state titles (third-largest division in state) while averaging 13.6 points per game as a senior.
Banks played four football games this past season, but ultimately took a redshirt. According to the school, he averaged 11.5 points and 7.6 rebounds per game as a junior at Westbury Christian (Houston) but didn’t play basketball as a senior.