Saturday night’s scheduled contest between No. 7 seed Oregon and No. 10 seed Virginia Commonwealth University in the first round of the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has been declared a no-contest with the Ducks advancing on to the second round because of COVID-19 issues within the VCU program.
It’s the first cancellation of the tournament as the event proceeds with rigorous COVID-19 testing standards.
“The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee has declared the VCU-Oregon game scheduled for Saturday night at Indiana Farmers Coliseum a no-contest because of COVID-19 protocols,” the NCAA said in a statement released to the media.
“This decision was made in consultation with the Marion County Public Health Department. As a result, Oregon will advance to the next round of the tournament. The NCAA and the committee regret that VCU’s student-athletes and coaching staff will not be able to play in a tournament in which they earned the right to participate. Because of privacy issues, we cannot provide further details.”
Oregon will play the winner of Saturday night’s game between No. 2 seed Iowa and No. 15 seed Grand Canyon. In the second half Iowa was ahead of Grand Canyon by double digits at the time of this posting.
Oregon head coach Dana Altman released this statement after receiving the VCU news.
“During these challenging times, health and safety is the highest priority. We would like to wish the VCU student-athletes and staff all the best, and congratulate them on an outstanding season,” Altman said. “We hate to see a team’s season end this way after all the hard work these student-athletes have put in. This isn’t the way we wanted to advance, but we are excited to be moving on and we will start our preparation for Monday’s game.”
The cancellation marks a bitter end for VCU after the Rams made the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team following a 19-7 season.
A source confirmed with CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander that positive tests surfaced within the VCU program on Wednesday evening, Friday evening, and Saturday morning. Those positive tests prompted health officials in Indiana and the NCAA to decide allowing VCU to move forward with playing was too risky, according to Norlander.
“We knew about the positives being confirmed today” said VCU Athletic Director Ed McLaughlin. “We were hoping that through contact tracing we were able to play tonight. Obviously that did not happen.”
Because this years NCAA Tournament is being played in a controlled environment in and around the Indianapolis, Indiana area, there was no confirmation of how the VCU program might have contracted the virus. VCU last played on Sunday in Dayton, Ohio in their conference tournament and it could be presumed the coaching staff and or players may have come in contact with a positive source there.
More updates will be posted soon.