Nate Allen
FAYETTEVILLE - Starting with conference basketball tournaments, which the SEC already canceled Thursday morning after Wednesday’s first round SEC Men’s Tournament games at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, and with the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Albuquerque, N.M. where the Razorbacks men’s and women’s track teams were already assembled Thursday but won’t compete with the Friday and Saturday meet canceled, the NCAA  has canceled all championship events for all winter and spring sports effective immediately through June in reaction to the spreading coronavirus pandemic.
“Today, NCAA President Mark Emmert and the Board of Governors canceled the Division I men’s and women’s 2020 basketball tournaments, as well as all remaining winter and spring NCAA championships,” the NCAA announced Thursday afternoon. “This decision is based on the evolving COVID-19 public health threat, our ability to ensure the events do not contribute to spread of the pandemic, and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time during this academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities.”
The decision of course cancels the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament which Coach Mike Neighbors’ nationally No. 24 24-8 Razorbacks were due an at large bid to be offered on selection Monday and the NCAA Men’s Tournament that Coach Eric Musselman’s Razorbacks, 20-12, were trying to play their way into after beating Vanderbilt, 86-73 in Wednesday’s first round in Nashville. They were scheduled to play South Carolina Thursday night in the now scrapped second round.
The cancellations this semester also affect men’s baseball, women’s softball, women’s gymnastics, men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s tennis and women’s swimming and diving.
Already having to contend with so much so fast, University of Arkansas officials, haven’t yet announced whether the Razorbacks spring football practices scheduled to begin Monday, will be canceled or commence.
The University of Arkansas has announced that after Friday the remainder of its spring semester classes will be conducted entirely online with  no classes actively attended on its Fayetteville campus.