The Florida State men's basketball team's dream season continued on Thursday despite college basketball cancellations across the country regarding coronavirus concerns.
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FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton already took home ACC Coach of the Year honors and the Seminoles cut down the nets after beating Boston College and locking up a regular season ACC championship. Next on their priority list was proving the fourth-ranked team in the country was better than Duke or Louisville in the ACC Tournament and worthy of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The ACC Tournament may have been canceled, but Florida State still won it without playing a single game.
FSU Basketball Awarded ACC Tournament Trophy
Your 2020 ACC men’s basketball champions: pic.twitter.com/LhznURkLeU
— Tim Linafelt (@Tim_Linafelt) March 12, 2020
The Florida State Seminoles were awarded the ACC Tournament trophy on Thursday after news broke the conference was canceling the rest of the tournament. The top-seeded Seminoles were scheduled to play No. 8 Clemson in the quarterfinals following a bye in Greensboro, North Carolina.
"Following additional consultation with the league's presidents and athletic directors, and in light of the continued conversations surrounding the fluidity of COVID-10, the Atlantic Coast Conference will immediately cancel the remainder of the 2020 ACC Tournament," the ACC said in a release.
Yet on Thursday, the team was awarded the Atlantic Coast Conference men's basketball tournament trophy despite playing zero games in it. They even posed for pictures with it.
Florida State has been awarded the ACC tournament trophy
(via @KeepBlitzin)pic.twitter.com/vnbqyBCcK4
— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) March 12, 2020
I guess this is a way of saying Florida State basketball was better than every other ACC team and no one else had a shot.
Only six games in the ACC men's basketball tournament were played. Pittsburgh defeated Wake Forest and North Carolina defeated Virginia Tech on Tuesday in the first round. Clemson downed Miami, NC State beat Pittsburgh, Notre Dame defeated Boston College and Syracuse beat the North Carolina Tar Heels on Wednesday.
Every other Power 5 conference — SEC, Big 12, Pac-12 and the Big Ten — also canceled their conference tournaments.
If this conference tournament win does officially count, it marks FSU's first ACC Tournament championship since 2012. That was Florida State's lone championship since joining the ACC as a Division I team in 1991.
The ACC Champions head back to Tallahassee and wait for a COVID-19 status update on the NCAA Tournament. Things look bleak for now regarding March Madness, which is unfortunate for FSU fans hoping for the program's national championship.
