The NCAA announced Wednesday that its men’s and women’s March Madness basketball tournaments would go on despite growing concerns over the COVID-19 crisis and that games would be played in mostly-empty venues.
On Thursday morning, hours after the NBA announced it had suspended its season indefinitely after a Utah Jazz player tested positive for COVID-19, Charles Barkley called for the NCAA to follow suit and cancel the tournament outright.
“I’m going to say this and I’m probably going to get in trouble because I work for Turner and March Madness and CBS. I think Turner Sports and CBS got to close down March Madness,” Barkley said during an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up. “You can’t have these players – even if there’s no fans in the stadium – you can’t have these players breathing on each other for two weeks. Even if they’re at a hotel, they’re going to be in different cities around the country. I hate to say it. Like I said, I probably shouldn’t say it because I work for CBS. I think we’re going to have to shut down March Madness until we know more.”
Prior to the NCAA’s announcement, NCAA president Mark Emmert said they did consider cancelling the tournament.
“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 Associated Press. “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.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the World Health Organization assessed that COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic.
Several major college tournaments have since been cancelled.
“It’s all going to come down to the almighty dollar. I hate to say that but that’s just a fact,” Barkley added. “I just think the right thing to do is say, ‘Hey guys, let’s break this thing off.’ … We might pick it up in a couple weeks with March Madness, but right now we need to take a pause.”
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