UCF spring season is suspended.
Due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the American Athletic Conference has announced all baseball, softball, tennis, golf, rowing and track & field contests will not be conducted until further notice.
While games and travel are called off, on-campus practice and team activities may continue. This would seemingly include spring football practice as Josh Heupel's team had been set to resume activities next week. The spring game is scheduled for April 4.
The move comes amid widespread cancellations of conference basketball tournaments. After making decisions Wednesday night to hold future games without fans, most leagues called off the games by late Thursday morning. That wiped out the entirety of the American Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Championship in Fort Worth, Tex., and an unceremonious end of the season for Johnny Dawkins' team, which had been scheduled to play South Florida in the first game of the day.
Earlier Thursday, UCF announced games involving spring sports would still occur as scheduled but with restricted personnel (no fans). Of course, the situation was fluid and by early afternoon many conferences, including the ACC, SEC and PAC-12, as well as more professional leagues, announced they would begin suspending contests.
The impetus appears to be the drama that unfolded in the NBA late Wednesday. Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert, who had been sidelined with an undisclosed illness, tested positive for COVID-19, forcing an immediate halt of the Jazz game at Oklahoma City. A suspension of the NBA's season quickly followed. All Jazz players were tested for the virus late Wednesday and a positive case was discovered in an additional player, Donovan Mitchell.
Update: 30 minutes after the American's announcement (4:30 p.m. Thursday), the NCAA declared that all winter and spring sports championships have been canceled. That includes the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments, the College World Series for baseball and softball and all other championships (tennis, golf, etc.). It's certainly looking more likely NCAA spring seasons are not just temporarily suspended, but very well could be over.
