The Virginia men’s basketball team is out of the ACC tournament following a positive COVID-19 test within the program, the ACC announced Friday morning.
The Cavaliers were scheduled to play Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament semifinals on Friday evening after defeating Syracuse in the quarterfinals. Georgia Tech will now automatically advance to the ACC championship game on Saturday against either Florida State or North Carolina.
“Obviously we’d prefer to win the game to advance to the finals,” said Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner on the ACC Network’s Packer & Durham show. “But hey, it is what it is. We’ll have to be ready to play. You’re still playing for a championship.”
Virginia is the second ACC team in as many days forced to withdraw from the ACC tournament due to COVID-19 issues and contact tracing, after Duke left on Thursday morning.
While Duke athletic director Kevin White announced Thursday the Blue Devils’ season was over, that’s not necessarily the case for Virginia. In order to play in the NCAA tournament, a team needs to show seven consecutive negative daily tests before arriving in Indianapolis, and then undergo daily testing while inside the controlled environment in Indianapolis.
Dan Gavitt, NCAA senior vice president of men’s basketball, has also said that a team just needs five healthy players to play in their NCAA tournament game. If Virginia doesn’t have a widespread COVID outbreak and the rest of the team continues to test negative, the Cavaliers should be eligible to play in the NCAA tournament.
Virginia, the ACC regular season champions, are a projected 4-seed in the NCAA tournament in Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology.
Pastner said his team has not been back to Atlanta since they left to play Wake Forest last Thursday in order to create their own bubble. He told his team they can only go in elevators with people in their bubble.
“You can do everything right and still get a positive…that’s what it comes down to,” Pastner said. “Can you get lucky enough to not get it.”
