Swofford: ‘My heart bleeds for Greensboro,’ in wake of ACC Tournament cancellation

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Photo by Jerry Ratcliffe

GREENSBORO, N.C. — It all began Tuesday with one of those baby-crawling races across the dirty Greensboro Coliseum floor during halftime of the ACC Tournament’s opening round. The parents should have known better.

It all ended abruptly Thursday morning, just minutes before the opening tip of the Florida State vs. Clemson quarterfinals game. We all should have known better.

A little more than an hour after ACC commissioner John Swofford called an impromptu press conference at the coliseum to reaffirm an announcement from the previous evening that the league would play the rest of the tournament without fans, he was forced to take an about face and cancel the remainder of the event.

The ACC’s decision came minutes after several of the Power Five conferences had announced cancellations of those tournaments. As of midday Thursday, the NCAA had not issued any change in plans to cancel next week’s tournament. The organization announced earlier in the week that its tournament will be played without fans, only family members.

Shortly after officials called Florida State’s and Clemson’s teams off the Greensboro Coliseum floor, only small crowds of family and school officials remained in the stands. Bands played and cheerleaders attempted to keep the mood upbeat as anxious media, anticipating the bad news, milled around the court.

Moments later, Swofford emerged and announced the cancellation. An hour before, the commissioner said “my heart bleeds for Greensboro,” home headquarters of the ACC and the host city for the tournament more than anywhere else. The event had not been in Greensboro since 2015 as the expanded league reached out to larger venues such as Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, N.Y., and even nearby Charlotte.

This was to be sort of a test for Greensboro, hoping to remain in the rotation of host cities. Athletic directors from eight of the ACC’s 15 members were new enough that none of them had ever experienced a tournament in the “Gate City,” had not felt the passion inside the building. This week would have been a chance for Greensboro to strut its stuff to the newbies to enhance its chances for the future.

Swofford had also been in touch with all of the ACC member schools’ presidents and athletic directors, along with other Power Five conferences, as the national situation became more fluid, things changing by the hour.

“The league has made a decision to end this year’s ACC Tournament as of today,” Swofford said, surrounded by media on the court. “It’s tough to say those words to these young men who are on the floor, who want to continue to play, as well as the fans in the stands, media covering this great event.

“But we believe it’s the right decision to make at this particular point in time. It is an extraordinarily fluid situation with information changes by the week, then by the day, and now by the hour. Hopefully we’ve done the right thing in the context of this great country of ours and the context of intercollegiate sports.”

Both Clemson’s and Florida State’s teams stood nearby on the floor before Swofford presented the Seminoles with a trophy.

“We usually give two trophies each basketball season,” Swofford said. “One goes to the regular-season champion, one to the tournament champion, which automatically gets our bid to the NCAA Tournament.

“Florida State has had a tremendous season. If there is an NCAA Tournament, and we hope there will be, I can’t assure you there will be, the Florida State Seminoles will be the ACC champion and will represent this great conference in every conceivable way because of the leadership at the end of that bench.”

Swofford was pointing to FSU coach Leonard Hamilton, to whom he presented the trophy while the Seminoles band serenaded with the “Tomahawk Chop.”

Later, Swofford said that any time one of the five “power conferences” announced what it was doing the past two days, “We’ve all arrived there together … it’s just a question of when somebody announces it. I want to make certain that something this critical in nature, that all of my presidents and all of my athletic directors know and confer with what we intend to do before it’s public.”

The commissioner said he and his staff have been in contact and relied on health advisors from the state and local associations, and with the NCAA.

“It’s an extraordinary situation,” he said. “None of us involved in it have ever dealt with anything like it and hopefully never will again.”

Greensboro is also scheduled to be the site of one of the NCAA Tournament’s opening rounds next week.

“It has to be a desire of the institutions to have [the event] given the circumstances,” Swofford said. “We’ll see if that desire is there to continue the season or not and whether it is prudent and safe to do so on the medical advice.”

Virginia’s team was practicing at UNC-Greensboro when it got word the tournament had been cancelled.