COVID KOs VCU

OREGON ADVANCES IN ‘NO CONTEST’

ANYONE who’s paid any attention to the NCAA Tournament over the years understands right away that there are no guarantees.

Ask No. 2 seed Ohio State, which was bounced from the tournament on Friday in the first round by a No. 15 seeded Oral Roberts team that hadn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since Richard Nixon occupied the Oval Office (1974).

Ask Purdue, a No. 4 seed with big hopes but was eliminated late Friday night by a North Texas team that had never won an NCAA Tournament game.

Ask No. 4 seed Virginia, the de facto defending national champion (it won it all in 2019 and last year’s tournament was canceled because of COVID-19), which lost to 13th seeded Ohio University on Saturday night in the first round. No guarantees in the NCAAs. The 13 players from Virginia Commonwealth University and their coaching staff, all of whom had been in the Indianapolis bubble the NCAA created to protect March Madness from the insidiousness of the coronavirus, figured they were at least guaranteed Saturday night’s 9:57 p.m. firstround game against Oregon. And then they weren’t. VCU’s NCAA Tournament was over before it began thanks to what the school reported as “multiple’’ COVID-19 positive tests in the past 48 hours.

Those were reported to the NCAA and, in conjunction with area medical professionals, it was ruled that VCU could not take the court for its first-round game and Oregon would advance in a “no-contest’’ to a second-round game against Iowa.

So, the NCAA Tournament’s worst nightmare struck, COVID-19 becoming an unwelcome 65th team in March Madness, knocking VCU out of the tournament and leaving those 13 players and their coaches devastated.

At about 6:20 p.m. Saturday, VCU athletic director Ed McLaughlin received notification from the NCAA of the decision. McLaughlin quickly notified coach Mike Rhoades, who gathered his players together in a hallway on the 16th floor of the J.W. Marriott in downtown Indianapolis and told them the news.

McLaughlin was adamant there was no breach in COVID-19 protocol, saying, “It certainly wasn’t because bad behavior on our side whatsoever. It’s brutal, that’s the only way I can describe it.”

Rhoades called it “devastating’’ and “heartbreaking’’ and said there were “no dry eyes.’’

“This is what you dream of as a player and a college coach,’’ he said.

Among the players on VCU who are starters or play significant minutes, two of them — Levi Stockland III and Corey Douglas — are seniors and never will get this chance again.

Even for the underclassmen, like sophomore leading scorer Nah’Shon Hyland, there are no guarantees they’ll be back to the Big Dance again. Oregon coach Dana Altman took no joy in the “nocontest’’ ruling that allowed his team a free pass into the second round.

“We hate to see a team’s season end this way after all the hard work these student-athletes have put in,’’ Altman said in a statement. “This isn’t the way we wanted to advance.’’

Some teams enter the NCAA Tournament expecting to make a deep run, to win it all. Others are ecstatic just to step foot on the stage they’d dreamt about since they were kids.

But the common thread is that the NCAA Tournament is the time of their lives. For those 13 VCU players and their coaches, they never got to experience that beauty this March.

Another example — albeit not a basketball lesson — that there are no guarantees in the NCAA Tournament. Or in life.