NCAA tournament still is on for now

The NCAA basketball tournaments are on — for now — but the buzzer-beaters, upsets and all the other shining moments will take place in mostly empty arenas.

Trying to avoid spreading the new coronavirus that has become a global pandemic, the NCAA on Wednesday decided the men’s and women’s Division I tournament games will be off-limits to the general public. The major college conferences followed the NCAA’s lead, one by one announcing their league tournaments would go on the rest of the week with restricted fan access.

“I think the right answer is we considered every option available to us,” NCAA president Mark Emmert told The Associated Press. “The notion of cancellation, however, is one that is pretty draconian because we’re dealing with student-athletes for whom participating in a national championship is a life long dream.

“We debated every option available to us, but that’s the one nobody wanted to pursue.”

The NCAA’s plan is to conduct both tournaments, which begin next week, with only essential staff and limited family in attendance.

“The decision was based on a combination of the information provided by national and state officials, by the advisory team that we put together of medical experts from across the country, and looking at what was going to be in the best interest of our student-athletes, of course,” Emmert said in a phone interview. “But also the public health implications of all of this. We recognize our tournaments bring people from all around the country together. They’re not just regional events. They’re big national events. It’s a very, very hard decision for all the obvious reasons.”

Emmert said the NCAA wants to move the men’s Final Four on April 4 and 6 from Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium to a smaller arena in the area. The NCAA also will consider using smaller venues for second-week regional sites currently set to be played at the Toyota Center in Houston, Madison Square Garden in New York, Staples Center in Los Angeles and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

“We have to determine the availability of the sites, obviously, but it doesn’t make good sense to have a football stadium be empty,” Emmert said.

All sites for next week’s men’s games will remain the same unless conditions in those areas force relocation, he said. Or worse.

The NCAA said tickets already purchased will be refunded.

This affects Spokane, located two hours to the north of Lewiston and who is scheduled to host the first two rounds of the tournament March 19 and 21.

Alisha Benson, CEO of Greater Spokane Incorporated, said the loss of fans attending the games will hurt.

“It’s a big deal,” Benson said. “Hosting the NCAA’s is significant. It definitely will impact our community and our region on many different levels.”

First- and second-round sites for the women’s tournament will become official next week. Those games are usually played at or near the campuses of the highly seeded teams.

The Big Sky was one of the only conferences not to set attendance limits, or cancel or postpone tournament games because of concerns about the coronavirus crisis.

When asked if he was comfortable having fans in the stands in Boise, Idaho women’s coach Jon Newlee said he was “absolutely comfortable” with it.

“I think there’s some mass hysteria going on that people got to take a good look at it,” Newlee said. “I thought there was a great article in the Washington Post that I saw and read, and I think if people see the facts, I don’t think there’s any reason to panic.

“I think people are pushing the panic button a little quick right now. So I’m comfortable, I know our players are comfortable and hopefully we keep going forward as we are right now.”

The decision applies to more than just men’s and women’s basketball. All NCAA-sponsored championships including hockey’s Frozen Four will be affected.

But the men’s basketball tournament is the crown jewel, one of the most popular events on the American sports calendar. March Madness draws hundreds of thousands of fans to arenas from coast to coast. The men’s tournament generated more than $900 million in revenue last year for the NCAA and its member schools, but the majority of that was from a media rights deal with CBS and Turner that pays about $800 million per year.

“We’re like any enterprise of this size, we have business interruption insurance, and a variety of other things but we’ll sort that out in due course,” Emmert said.

Emmert said CBS and Turner plan to broadcast the games as usual. Other media members will be allowed into the arenas to cover the games, but how many still is being determined, he said.

Emmert said a protocol for the medical screening of people entering the arenas is still being worked out too, along with what constitutes essential staff (bands? cheerleaders?) and how to define family members.

The 68-team field for the men’s tournament is scheduled to be announced Sunday and the 64-team women’s tournament field is to be unveiled Monday. Games begin Tuesday and Wednesday on the men’s side in Dayton, Ohio, where earlier in the day the governor said he would issue an order to restrict spectator access to indoor sporting events.

Conference tournament games in places such as Kansas City, Mo.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Las Vegas will be the last of this season college basketball season played in front of large crowds. Many fans were not happy about that.

“We were going to be here for the whole tournament. Now it’s trying to find a flight home, go back to hotel and cancel, see if they let us cancel the rest of it,” said Maryland fan Tim White, 44, from Baltimore, who made the trip to Indianapolis for the Big Ten tournament.

“This is a bit overblown, I believe. I’m definitely disappointed. You take the fans out of it, you might as well not have the tournament. With the NCAA tournament, that’s what makes the excitement when a 14th (seeded) team beats a three. Fans get behind that team. Where there is no support, it changes outcomes, unfortunately.”

The National Association of Basketball Coaches canceled its convention Wednesday night, which was scheduled to be held in Atlanta during Final Four weekend.

There are eight first- and second-round sites for the men’s tournament, scheduled to be played March 19-22. Besides Spokane, locations include Cleveland; Albany, N.Y.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Omaha, Neb.

The women’s tournament first- and second-round games begin March 21 and will be played at 16 sites. The second-week regionals will be played in Dallas; Greenville, S.C.; Portland, Ore.; and Fort Wayne, Ind. The Final Four will be at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. where the NBA’s Pelicans play. on April 3 and 5.

Emmert said because of the outbreak the situation remains fluid.

“This will be a continuing story,” he said.