WAC and C-USA basketball tournaments canceled amid virus concerns; NMSU men named champs

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico - The Western Athletic Conference along with Conference USA announced the cancellations of their respective basketball tournaments Thursday due to coronavirus concerns.

In a statement, the WAC said, "this decision has been made based upon new information, including the recommendation of the NCAA's COVID-19 advisory panel."

Both the men's and women's team for New Mexico State University were still playing in the WAC tournament.

Per the WAC code book, officials said the automatic qualifiers to the NCAA Division I men's and women's tournaments will be the regular season champions. Which means the NMSU men's team and the University of Missouri-Kansas City women's team are the champs.

Organizers said further decisions about the WAC Championship events would be made at a later time.

The NMSU men's team was set to play Thursday at 1 p.m. against the Chicago State cougars while the women's team was slated to play Friday at 1 p.m. against the UMKC.

Meanwhile, the University of Texas at El Paso women's and men's teams were also playing in the C-USA tournament. The UTEP women's team was set to play Old Dominion Thursday at 12:30 p.m., while the men's team lost Wednesday evening.

Also Thursday, C-USA said it was immediately suspending all spring sport competition until further notice. The league office said the "decision was made with the safety of our fans, student-athletes, coaches and staff as the utmost priority."

UTEP sporting events slated for this weekend that were immediately impacted included the softball team hosting UAB for a three-game series and the tennis team hosting Chicago State on Monday. both events were cancelled.

UTEP added that all athletic teams scheduled to compete away from home this weekend would return to El Paso.