ESPN.com
March 12, 2021
The Duke Blue Devils are out of the 2021 ACC tournament after a positive COVID-19 test within their men’s basketball program, the conference announced Thursday. The Blue Devils, who were scheduled to play Florida State in the ACC quarterfinals on Thursday, have been eliminated from the event, which is scheduled to run through Saturday. This marks the highest-profile COVID-19-related cancellation or postponement during a 2020-21 college basketball season marked by altered schedules, team pauses and general logistical issues throughout the sport.
The news also raises a number of questions that will reverberate throughout college basketball in the coming hours and days. Is Duke’s season over and its NCAA tournament hopes dashed? Will other ACC teams be impacted by the news? How will the conference and other leagues handle the remainder of their tournaments? What will such a situation mean if it occurs in the 2021 NCAA tournament, scheduled to run through April 5? ESPN.com’s college basketball team of Myron Medcalf, Jeff Borzello and John Gasaway examined all of the basketball, non-basketball and historical implications of Thursday’s news: What do we know about Duke’s positive test?