Abrupt Cancellation Makes for Surreal Scene at Deserted Big Ten Tournament

After the Big Ten and others canceled their conference tournaments, it's becoming clear the 2019-20 college basketball season is likely over.

INDIANAPOLIS — This is what it looks and sounds like when March Madness dies right in front of you:

Basketball players warming up in an empty arena, fans already banished due to the coronavirus outbreak. Michigan and Rutgers are preparing for a noon tipoff. Two Michigan players, Brandon Johns Jr., and Isaiah Livers, run onto the floor pointing into the empty stands, jokingly acknowledging the non-cheers from the non-crowd, a moment of levity amid this surreal, somber setting.

Fans or no fans, they want to play. They’re excited to play. This is what their entire seasons have been pointing toward.

Music is coming through the public address system, but there are no pep bands and no cheerleaders and no other trappings of March college basketball. Just some media along press row, and the Big Ten Network getting ready to televise the game. Sneakers squeak and balls bounce, and that's about it for ambient noise.

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Then, men in suits step onto the court and tell the players from Michigan and Rutgers to leave, just 20 minutes before they are scheduled to play. They walk off the court in silence.

A brief burst of confusion and speculation ensues: Did someone fall ill? Was there a positive test? Are temperatures being taken to guarantee health? What just happened?

Then word ripples along press row: the game is canceled. The whole tournament is canceled.

Check Twitter: the American Athletic Conference tourney is canceled. The Southeastern Conference tourney is canceled. The Big 12 is canceled. It is cascading from coast to coast. Coronavirus has killed college basketball.

Then a voice booms through the P.A., the volume adjusted to cut through the noise of a crowd. Without the fans, the announcement echoes off the empty seats and overwhelms the eardrums, pounding home the finality of the moment.

The voice reads the league announcement of the cancellation of the event.

"The Big Ten Conference will use this time to work with the appropriate medical experts and institutional leadership to determine next steps for moving forward in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic. The main priority of the Big Ten Conference continues to be the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes, coaches, administrators, fans and media as we continue to monitor all developing and relevant information on the COVID-19 virus."

Then the media is told to leave the court area. Back in the work room, reporters file into rows of long tables in near silence—moving urgently to report the news but trying to process the abruptness of the moment.

A guess at the prevailing emotions: stress and sadness, commingled.

At 12:30, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren takes the podium to explain his decision.

“Always base your decisions on the right thing to do,” Warren says. “I think as administrators … we have a responsibility to make sure we are always taking care of the health and welfare of our student-athletes.”

The league already had announced Wednesday that fans would not attend the games Thursday through Sunday. That cast a pall over this city, with fans having arrived from around the Midwest to cheer on their teams.

A normally boisterous downtown at tournament time was somber. Logo-clad fans in venerable steakhouse St. Elmo made little noise while they ate. Tables were empty, a rarity during this week when all of the Big Ten is in town.

At the arena, where the first night of games (and ultimately the last night) were being played, things were worse. Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg fell ill during the Cornhuskers’ game against Indiana, and the team was briefly quarantined thereafter. Hoiberg did not test positive for COVID-19, producing a brief pulse of hope. But by Thursday morning, Warren was putting plans in place to cancel his tournament.

“I think the biggest thing is the uncertainty …” Warren says. “There were a lot of people telling me, ‘I don’t know.’ You get concerned when you hear ‘I don’t know’ a few too many times.”

Certain what to do in the face of such uncertainty, Warren began communicating with Big Ten leaders. He had a conference call with the league’s presidents and chancellors, then a second call with the league’s athletic directors and senior women’s administrators. He also put in a quick courtesy call to NCAA president Mark Emmert to apprise him of the Big Ten’s decision.

As of early afternoon eastern daylight time, the NCAA has not joined the movement and canceled its signature events, the men’s and women’s national tournaments. But going forward now seems impossible. It’s a matter of time. The NCAA offices are just a few blocks from Bankers Life Arena, and the ripple effect of this and the other cancellations took no time at all to reach their door.

It’s an inevitability now. So many athletes’ hopes and dreams will be dashed, in so many sports.

Right here in front of us, in an empty arena, two groups of players ready to compete in the sport they love were abruptly sent off the court. Their seasons are almost certainly over, and in some cases entire careers just ended, just like that, with security coming on the floor and telling them to leave.

The old NCAA tournament saying is that only one team gets to finish the season happy. But here in this cursed season, we won’t even have that. There are no winners in March 2020.