ROSE HALL, St James – For the second-straight year, the Jersey Mike’s Jamaica Classic Men’s NCAA basketball tournament usually played in mid-November has been cancelled due to the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

A notice on the event’s website said a decision has been taken to stage the four-day tournament in St Petersburg, Florida, from November 18-21.

The site also announced the basketball event was set to return to Jamaica in November 2022, and named three schools that are expected to be in attendance —Missouri State University, University of Massachusetts and Wake Forest.

Meanwhile, the teams that are confirmed for the St Petersburg staging are the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, University of Massachusetts, Florida International University, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Weber State, and Ball State University.

The Jersey Mike’s event has been held in Montego Bay three times between 2017 and 2019 and attracted top programmes such as Florida State University, Loyola Marymount University, Louisiana State University and Utah State.

— Paul Reid