CBI tournament canceled due to the coronavirus

Tyler Meguire
March 11, 2020

The sports world is seeing many changes as COVID-19 spreads. Recently, the situation has been declared a pandemic. The National Basketball Association is making changes along with other professional leagues.

As of today, the National Basketball Association has suspended the remaining portion of the season after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus. The San Jose Sharks, the Bay Area hockey team, also announced a three-week ban that would suspend attendance at home games in an effort to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

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In college hoops, the Ivy League canceled its conference tournaments for both the men’s and women’s teams. The NCAA just announced the NCAA tournament will be played without fans.

Falling in line with the rest of the sports world is the College Basketball Invitational, as it was announced today that the postseason tournament will be canceled.

Here is the official statement:

Why does this matter?

The Colorado State men’s basketball team had high hopes this season of reaching the National Invitation Tournament after having a 20-win season. The Rams were one of the top dogs in the Mountain West Conference until the crushing loss to the MW champion Utah State at home and the 24-point loss to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas back in February.

After dropping from third in the MW to sixth in a span of a couple weeks, the Rams’ season still looked good as they were heading into the MW Championships against a team who only won two games in conference play. Then, CSU was a first-round exit to said team, which virtually knocked them out of consideration for the NIT.

There was still hope for the CBI until today, when it was canceled. Now, the Rams have to hope for the CollegeInsider.com Tournament to not follow suit if they want any postseason action. As of right now, the CIT is still scheduled to play.

Tyler Meguire can be reached at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @TMeguire. 

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