NCAA Tournaments are on for now, even after NBA went on hiatus

The NCAA basketball tournaments are on — for now — though 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 conferences followed the NCAA’s lead, one by one announcing their league tournaments would go on 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 lifelong dream.

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

A few hours later, the NBA suspended its season after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, and reopened questions about whether the NCAA had gone far enough.

The NCAA did not immediately return a request for comment after the NBA’s decision.

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 told the AP in an 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...