Friday, March 29

Pac-12 announces cancelation of all competition in light of COVID-19



This post was updated March 16 at 9:42 p.m.

The Pac-12 has canceled all scheduled competitions, effective immediately, because of fear of a further coronavirus outbreak.

The remainder of the Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament, all upcoming postseason events and every other Pac-12 game has been canceled, the conference said in a statement released Thursday morning. The conference announced Wednesday it would be limiting attendance at all events to essential personnel only, but now not even the players will take the field or court in the coming weeks.

UCLA men’s basketball’s conference tournament run, which was scheduled to begin against California on Thursday night, will be canceled as a result. While other conferences such as the Southeastern Conference have postponed or suspended their games, the Pac-12 went one step further when it fully called off competition.

The dominos started to fall Thursday morning when the American Athletic Conference called off its men’s basketball tournament at 8:47 a.m. The Big Ten and SEC followed suit over the next 15 minutes, and once the Pac-12 canceled its tournament at 9:17 a.m., all Power 5 conference tournaments had been shut down.

All UCLA teams in the Pac-12 – which is every active program outside of women’s water polo and men’s volleyball – will cease competition immediately. Women’s water polo and men’s volleyball have both announced they will abide by the Pac-12’s policy and not compete either.

UCLA men’s and women’s basketball’s potential appearances in their respective NCAA tournaments were later canceled as well.

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Alumnus

Connon joined the Bruin as a freshman in 2017 and contributed until he graduated in 2021. He was the Sports editor for the 2019-2020 academic year, an assistant Sports editor for the 2018-2019 academic year and spent time on the football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, men's soccer, cross country, men's golf and women's golf beats, while also contributing movie reviews for Arts & Entertainment.


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