Reports of Notre Dame men’s hockey having positive COVID tests this morning made it seem like a possibility that the Irish would have to forfeit their first round NCAA tournament matchup against Boston College. After follow-up testing that confirmed the prior positive results, that forfeit is now a reality, and Notre Dame will unfortunately have to withdraw from the tournament.
BREAKING: CHN has learned that Notre Dame is out of the NCAA Tournament due to COVID protocols.
— College Hockey News (@chnews) March 25, 2021
As we previously mentioned in the earlier post, the procedure laid out by the NCAA selection committee was that if a team had to withdraw due to COVID within 24 hours of the bracket being released, they could be replaced — but if a team had to withdraw after that, they were out, and the team scheduled to face them would advance automatically.