Pac-12 Tournament Canceled, Ending Cal's Hoops Season
Hours ahead of tip-off to the first quarterfinal game, the Pac-12 conference announced the cancelation of its men’s hoops league tournament. The conference followed the Big-10, Big 12, ACC, SEC, WAC, Atlantic 10, and Conference USA in canceling the conference tournament amid concerns over the spread of coronavirus. The Big East is the only major conference currently continuing to play, which tipped off its first game this morning (Pacific Time).
The cancelation of the tournament ends Cal’s season after Wednesday evening’s 63-51 win against Stanford. The Bears finish the season 14-18, including 7-11 in Pac-12 play.
The Pac-12 will also be canceling all conference sporting events and championships until further notice, according to a statement from the league in the tweet above.
It’s obviously a bummer for seniors of all sports, including senior guards Paris Austin and Kareem South. But head coach Mark Fox puts things in perspective.
Cal will not qualify for the NCAA Tournament and will very likely not qualify for the NIT should those events be played, which at this point seems to be trending to unlikely. The bright side is Cal gets to end its season on a win, which very rarely happens in college basketball.
We’ll continue to update this article if more news comes out. And we’ll have the usual post-season analysis and coverage over the coming days and weeks.