Following just hours after Division III, the Division II Presidents Council has also canceled NCAA Championships in fall sports. That leaves only Division I yet to make a decision on fall sports amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Division III canceled its Championship events earlier this afternoon. That came after the NCAA’s Board of Governors published guidelines for each Division, including deadlines on whether to hold NCAA Championship events in fall sports. Just hours after Division III’s announcement, Division II made the call to cancel its fall championships:
“After reviewing and discussing the Board of Governors’ directives, the Division II Presidents Council made the difficult decision that holding fall championships in any capacity was not a viable or fiscally responsible option for Division II,” council chair Sandra Jordan said in a press release, which you can read here.
Division I has until August 21 to make its decision.
Divisions I, II, and III must decide by August 14 how to handle eligibility for athletes who choose to opt out of a season.
Though NCAA Championship events are canceled in Divisions II and III, teams can still play a regular-season schedule during the fall semester if they choose.
Swimming & Diving remain winter sports in the NCAA, but competition during the fall semester has already been adjusted for a number of conferences and schools.
Braden –
I think you mean to say “Hear! Hear!” 😎
Little off topic, but anyone seen/heard anything regarding whether the NCAA will extend the recruiting dead period beyond August 31?
D2 Lone Star Conference decided to start the fall 2020 season no earlier than September 21.
Does this have any implications on the D2/3 swimming season?
Are dual meets and fall invites likely to be cancelled?
Quite honestly…no one knows. As of now, some conferences have out-right cancelled all fall events. Others have decided to wait till Oct 1 to make the decision for winter sports. In those, as of now things are planned as usual as long as no meet happens prior to Oct 1.
So far, this ruling wouldn’t directly impact the swimming season.
But, certainly at the D3 level, a huge portion of the country has already canceled competition for the fall SEMESTER (vs. season). I don’t think it’s been unanimous, but the vast majority of the top D3 teams won’t compete in the fall semester. Many D2s have already canceled fall semester as well.
I know people are on different sides of what needs to be done, but we all can agree this stinks. Just a flat out bummer.
Here, here.