Once Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren finalized his decision to cancel the men’s basketball tournament, he had to act quickly. Michigan and Rutgers, scheduled to tip off a second-round game at noon, were already on the court at Bankers Life Fieldhouse warming up.
Warren notified NCAA president Mark Emmert in what he estimates was a one-minute conversation to alert him of the plan. He spoke to the chancellors and presidents of Michigan and Rutgers and talked to their respective senior athletic administrators. The two athletic directors told their head coaches of the news, and they notified their players.
About 20 minutes before the day’s first game was scheduled to tip off, both the Wolverines and Scarlet Knights were pulled off the floor.
“I thought it was important that the individual institutions have a chance to communicate that to the teams, because then that way if the student-athletes or coaches have questions, they can answer them,” Warren said on Thursday.
At 11:43, the conference emailed a press release announcing the cancelation of the postseason men’s basketball tournament. Ohio State, one of the 10 conference teams that hadn’t played a game in the tournament yet, will leave Indianapolis to head back to Columbus on Thursday afternoon.
Less than an hour after the jolting announcement, Warren gathered reporters in the Indianapolis arena to explain why the Big Ten made the call, citing concerns about COVID-19. Importantly, he also clarified that this was a cancellation, not a postponement.
“As you make these decisions that are not easy, you have to always ask yourself, 'What is the right thing to do?' And I just felt very strongly that the right thing to do for our student-athletes and for our fans and for the media and for our families, our coaches, our administrators, was to make sure that we canceled the Big Ten men's basketball tournament,” Warren said at a press conference. “And I've just found over my career the more complicated decisions are, basically the answer is much more simple, and that is to always base your decisions on what is the right thing to do. And I strongly believe we have a fiduciary responsibility to our student-athletes first and foremost and our coaches, our administrators and our fans, to do what is right and to do what is fair, even if they really do want to play and continue playing.
“But I think as the administrators, as a conference, as our chancellors and presidents, our athletic directors and faculty athletic representatives and senior administrators, we have a responsibility to make sure that we're always taking care of the health and wellness and the safety of our student-athletes. So the decision was made this morning to cancel the remainder of the men's basketball tournament.”
Warren, in his first year as the Big Ten’s commissioner, is dealing with completely unforeseen circumstances.
Initially on Wednesday afternoon, the conference announced plans to go ahead with the games as usual. Two games were played that evening. Later that day, the Big Ten said it planned to play conference tournament games without fans. Less than 24 hours later, it was canceled entirely.
He didn't say why the situation changed between Wednesday’s announcements and the conference pulling the plug on Thursday, but said the Big Ten was able to gain more information by waiting.
“These are big decisions,” Warren said. “They have major ramifications, as far as scheduling and all the other different things. Those things take time to be able to do it with people's schedules. And you don't want to rush these decisions. It would've been great if it could have been two hours earlier this morning, but it wasn't. And I think the biggest thing is that we made the right decision. I feel very good with our decision. I'm very confident with our decision.”
Warren was also conscious of avoiding a worst-case scenario.
“If something had gone awry here, I don't want to be in the position looking back saying, ‘Only if we would've canceled this tournament,’” Warren said. “And I know we all love college athletics, we love basketball, women's and men's basketball. This is a great time of the year. It's part of our fabric of our country. But again, these are not easy decisions, but I feel very good with the decision that we have made at the Big Ten conference to cancel our men's basketball tournament.”
He said that in these types of situations, “time is our friend.” With that in mind, he said he thinks canceling the tournament allows for the Big Ten to “step back, take a deep breath, gather information, gather qualitative medical information, consult with our experts and continually make good decisions.”
Warren confirmed that no one at or involved with the Big Ten tournament has tested positive for coronavirus or has been quarantined. The conference seemed to have somewhat of a scare when Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg appeared sick while coaching a game on Wednesday night and left for the locker room with a few games remaining. The Cornhuskers team was reportedly quarantined before getting released to go back to its hotel. Nebraska later announced Hoiberg did not have the coronavirus, rather testing positive for Influenza A.
Warren said the Hoiberg situation was just "one piece" of the process behind the decision.
“I feel confident that I would've come to the same decision this morning, with or without that,” Warren said. “That was an element of it, but it was so much bigger than that. I think the biggest thing for me was to make sure that we had time, because I've just found that during life that if you take a step back, very rarely do you regret it. And we needed to make sure that we had the appropriate time to make the appropriate decisions, and this won't be the last decision. We'll go right from here to start evaluating how long is this for, what other events does it impact.”
Emmert and Warren had not yet spoken about the possibility of the NCAA tournament getting canceled, Warren said.
“The only thing that I would offer from an advice standpoint, whether it's the NCAA or any other person in my seat, would just be make sure you put the student-athletes at the epicenter of your decision,” Warren said. “And if you do that, I think you'll be led to the right decision.”
