Notre Dame basketball: ACC Tourney cancelled, end of the road for Irish

The ACC men’s tournament was canceled Thursday afternoon due to COVID-19 precautions, effectively ending the Notre Dame basketball season. What now?

After an up and down 2019-2020 regular season, the Notre Dame basketball team was starting to gain momentum and was looking to make a ‘Cinderella’ run in the ACC tournament.

The Irish defeated Boston College Wednesday night, 80-58, and looked very good doing so. The offense was in rhythm, with five players in double figures on the night (TJ Gibbs, Dane Goodwin, Prentiss Hubb, Nate Laszewski, Juwan Durham).

While ACC All-first teamer John Mooney struggled on the night with just eight points and 11 rebounds, he did enough to secure the win for his team and help it move on to the next round.

Or so they thought.

The Coronavirus struck in a big way in the United States and it has caused not only nationwide but worldwide panic, and rightfully so. Due to the pandemic, it was announced Thursday afternoon that the ACC tournament was canceled.

The ACC followed suit here, as it was announced prior that the B1G, SEC, MAC and Ivy League tournaments were canceled as well.

The cancelation ended any hopes of Notre Dame basketball making a deep run in the ACC tournament or even winning it. Winning the tournament seemed like the only path to the NCAA tournament for Notre Dame, but that is now over.

In reality, it seems very likely that the NCAA tournament could be canceled entirely, so it would not matter how Notre Dame did in the ACC.

That spells the end of college basketball for Notre Dame seniors TJ Gibbs, John Mooney, and Rex Pflueger.

Each had fine moments in their Notre Dame basketball careers, but surely this is not how they wanted to go out. At the moment, this is the latest news as far as the ACC or NCAA tournaments.

We will keep you updated here on Slap the Sign with anything and everything involving Notre Dame athletics.