ACC cancels remainder of men's basketball tournament

ACC Commissioner John Swofford awarding the MVP of the 2019 ACC tournament to Zion Williamson.
ACC Commissioner John Swofford awarding the MVP of the 2019 ACC tournament to Zion Williamson.

For the first time since the conference's inception, the ACC will not hold a men's basketball tournament.

The conference released an update on Twitter Thursday afternoon, announcing that "in light of the continued conversations surrounding the fluidity of COVID-19, the Atlantic Coast Conference will immediately cancel the remainder of the 2020 ACC tournament." 

While the ACC typically crowns the conference tournament winner as the only official ACC champion, the statement also read that "for NCAA tournament automatic qualification purposes, Florida State will represent the league as the ACC champion."



It remains to be seen whether automatic qualification into the NCAA tournament will matter. The Seminoles won the ACC's regular season title outright and had entered the conference tournament as the No. 1 seed.

This update comes just a few hours after ACC Commissioner John Swofford's initial announcement on the ACC Network's Packer and Durham show that the tournament quarterfinals would continue Thursday. Swofford then held a press conference to further explain that decision.

Since that press conference, however, multiple conferences shut down their own conference tournaments, including the Big Ten and SEC. And after some deliberation, the ACC decided to follow suit.

In a series of tweets from the ACC Network's Kelsey Riggs, Swofford can be seen addressing the few media and essential personnel that were in attendance Thursday at Greensboro Coliseum as well as awarding the conference championship trophy to Florida State.



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