COLUMBIA — The decision was expected. NCAA President Mark Emmert confirmed Thursday there will be no NCAA championships for fall sports.

But does that mean those sports can’t play at all this fall?

“We as a (SEC) coaches group, we’re trying to figure out what can we do,” South Carolina women’s soccer coach Shelley Smith said last week. “If the NCAA doesn’t have a championship, can we at least have a conference championship?”

The NCAA’s decision affected USC men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball and cross country (basketball is considered a winter sport, and football is not under the NCAA’s jurisdiction for championship events). The NCAA previously said that if 50 percent or less of the colleges in Division I weren’t playing fall sports due to the coronavirus pandemic, then there would be no NCAA championships.

By Thursday night, less than 70 of 204 men’s soccer teams were still planning to play. Less than a third of the 335 women’s soccer teams were planning to play, and that number was about the same for women’s volleyball.

The decision still has to be voted on by the NCAA Board of Governors on Aug. 21, but Emmert’s announcement seemed to leave no doubt.

“We cannot now at this point have fall NCAA championships because there’s not enough schools participating. We can’t in any Division I NCAA championship sport now,” he said. “Sadly, tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall. Full stop.”

But questions still abound.

If the schools do play this fall, will they still be able to participate in the spring, which is when the NCAA hopes to hold those seasons? There will clearly be no NCAA championship this fall (and may not be in the spring), but would the NCAA consider a fall season that perhaps ended in a conference championship a full season? If seniors play this fall and then there is a spring season, do they still have eligibility?

Those are what Smith, men’s soccer coach Mark Berson, volleyball coach Tom Mendoza and cross country coach Andrew Allden are trying to figure out and then express to their student-athletes. None of the sports has a posted schedule although the SEC has said they can’t start until at least Sept. 1 (men’s soccer competes in Conference USA, which is also still planning to play fall sports).

A USC spokesperson said Friday that all of the coaches are seeking answers from the NCAA but since the announcement came so suddenly Thursday, they may take a while. All that’s left to do is continue practicing, or in the case of cross country, begin practicing on Monday.

“It’s business as usual, if there is such a thing these days,” Berson said Wednesday. “There’s things you can’t do anything about. We’re just marching on, getting ready and really, really pleased with what this group looks like.”

Berson, the only coach the USC men’s program has ever had, has already announced he will retire after one more season. Now there’s no telling when that season will be or what it will look like.

Smith has constructed one of the top programs in the sport, winning two SEC regular-season titles and one SEC tournament in the past four years, and advancing to four Elite Eights and one Final Four in the past six. She brought up another point she and her fellow coaches will have to examine going forward.

“Our team, our mentality, we’re just ready to play. When they say go, we’ll go,” Smith said. “The hard part, especially for the seniors, a lot of them have planned to graduate, go pro in the spring and move on.”

Directives from the NCAA on how to proceed are forthcoming. In the meantime, all USC and the country’s thousands of other teams can do is keep waiting.

Follow David Cloninger on Twitter @DCPandC.