NCAA TO LEAVE DECISIONS ON PLAYING UP TO STATES/SCHOOLS

NCAA president Mark Emmert said Tuesday, the NCAA won't mandate or oversee a uniform return to college sports, leaving decisions on start dates to state officials and university presidents.

College athletics came to a halt in mid-March, when the NCAA canceled the men's and women's basketball tournaments, along with all remaining winter and spring championships, because of the evolving threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

There is still no timetable for a return, and Emmert said it isn't the NCAA's role to determine one in this instance.

"Normally, there's an agreed-upon start date for every sport, every season," Emmert told ESPN, "but under these circumstances, now that's all been derailed by the pandemic. It won't be the conferences that can do that, either. It will be the local and state health officials that say whether or not you can open and play football with fans.

Earlier Tuesday, a number of Pac-12 coaches supported an NCAA-mandated uniform start to the season.

The one championship the NCAA doesn't oversee is that of college football, which determines its winner through the College Football Playoff.  Big-12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told ESPN that the Football Oversight Committee could play a role in helping determine a start date.