Coronavirus: Charles Barkley calls for March Madness to be suspended

Should the NCAA tournament be suspended entirely due to the threat of coronavirus?

NCAA president Mark Emmert announced on Wednesday in a statement that all men’s and women’s NCAA tournament games would be played in empty stadiums to try and curb the spread of coronavirus – but in the wake of the NBA’s decision to suspend the season entirely following the positive test of a player, more drastic action may need to be taken to keep players safe.

NBA legend Charles Barkley, who serves as a college basketball analyst during the tournament, bristled at the idea of keeping fans out of stadiums and the idea of canceling the Olympics in an interview with Dan Patrick just a few days ago. As the threat level continues to rise, however, Barkley has shifted his stance considerably, and during an appearance on Get Up, Barkley called on his own employers to move toward suspending the NCAA tournament “until we know more.”

“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, man. 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. 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.

…. I just think the right thing to do is say ‘hey guys, let’s break this thing off.’ [Windhorst], you had a great point. We might pick it up in a couple weeks with March Madness, but right now we need to take a pause, let the doctors do their thing. But the first thing we need to do is see who all is infected! That’s the thing that’s scary about this whole thing. Nobody knew Rudy Gobert was infected until 24 hours ago, and he’s been in six or seven states the last two weeks. We need to get everybody – [including] the TV announcers who travel with these NBA teams and these college teams – we need to take a step back and say ‘hey guys, before we do anything, we’re going to test every single player in college and pros, and then we’ll get back to you on what’s next.'”

Several conference tournaments announced on Wednesday that doors will be closed to fans (after opening the tournament in front of crowds), including the ACC, SEC, Big East and Pac-12 – and it’s possible that some of those tournaments could be cancelled entirely on Thursday.

ESPN’s Jay Bilas also called for the tournament to be suspended, noting that it would be a bad look for the NCAA to have players on the court when the NBA has suspended its season.

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