WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
Oregon’s Ionescu, teammates denied NCAA title chance by COVID-19 scare
The news hit like a bag of bricks. Albeit one we all probably saw coming. The NCAA canceled the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments on Thursday. March Madness is off. And with that, I have one thing to say.
It’s this: Sorry, Sabrina.
Sabrina Ionescu deserved better. The star and leader of the Oregon Ducks basketball team, arguably the best player to come out of the Bay Area, came back for another season, with all that unfinished business. Then came a terrible helicopter crash (which killed her friend Kobe Bryant). And then coronavirus. I’m thinking when she heard the news about the canceled tournament, threw her hands up and said, “The last two months have been a hell of a decade.”
The NCAA did the right thing in shutting down a multibillion-dollar event that would have jeopardized public health. I don’t think Mark Emmert, president of the NCAA, was consulting with a panel of physicians as much as he was talking with CBS in the hours that led to the cancellation.
This all stinks for Ionescu. Also for Ducks coach Kelly Graves, who was in Arkansas recruiting on Wednesday and told me, “May go home.” The Ducks were
on an unprecedented roll, and I had them penciled in to rip through the Portland Regional and arrive in New Orleans at the Final Four ready to finish what they started. But that’s off now. No Portland Regional now.
No Final Four.
No nets left to cut down.
We’re watching unprecedented stuff here. NBA season suspended. NFL workouts scrubbed. High school sporting championships shut down. And now, the most electric tournament in all of sports — March Madness — turned into March Sadness.
Sports is supposed to serve as a diversion for the rest of American life. An escape. I was reminded of this a few years ago when the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry were busy making a NBA championship run. My best friend and former newspaper colleague, Randy Sumimoto, was dying. He had a football-sized tumor in the middle of his abdomen. It broke through the skin. I know because he removed the bandage to show me. He was 50 years old, on pain medication, living out what we all knew were his final days. I sat with him for hours.
We mostly talked about the Warriors’ run. Because he was tired of talking about colon cancer.
Randy told me he wanted to live long enough to see his team win. He made it a goal. And on the night the Warriors celebrated a world title, my old friend woke groggy from the morphine and summoned a family member.
He opened his eyes and asked, “Did they win?”
“They won it all, Randy,” the answer came, “world champs.”
My friend smiled. Three days later, he was dead.
There are much bigger things than sports. We’re reminded of that on a daily basis. But what struck me in the last 48 hours as the cancellations in the sports world stacked up is how proud I am of the sports world. It set money aside for a moment. Sports became a social leader, setting off alarm bells with how seriously it took this virus. It was as if a segment of the public didn’t believe that social distancing was vital until the sports world told them it was.
I don’t know where we’ll turn for our diversion in the coming weeks. Netflix, maybe. Each other, hopefully. Because sports won’t be there for us. It just shut itself down. Not over a lockout or the collective bargaining agreement, but because the sports leagues didn’t think it wise or responsible to continue with so much at stake.
Be proud of that.
Still, I’m left heartbroken for Ionescu, Graves, Satou Sabally and Ruthy Hebard. That was some run the Ducks gave the state of Oregon. Thirty-one wins. Only two losses. So many big moments and such greatness. I would have loved to see them play Baylor and South Carolina. Like, today. On a playground, even. The best vs. the best. But instead I’m left thinking a lot about the last time I saw this Oregon women’s basketball machine on the floor. It was Sunday in that blowout win over Stanford in the Pac-12 tournament title game at Mandalay Bay Events Center.
I didn’t realize then that it was the last time I’d see Ionescu in a college uniform.
When Ionescu somehow hit a breathtaking buzzer-beating runner from 3-point range, I didn’t fully appreciate it. I didn’t think, “Soak this in … last show tonight,” when Sabally made a wicked-good pass in the lane in the second half of that title game. But I did snap a photograph of the team during its final timeouts.
The players sat together with their coach on a knee at the center of the huddle. Then, they rose and stood together, perfectly still. Arm in arm. Shoulder to shoulder. Maybe the greatest team our state has ever seen, frozen in time for an instant.
They broke the huddle. I couldn’t imagine it would be for the last time. My friend Randy would have loved this Oregon team. It had talent, grit and was well coached. It’s been a beautiful diversion.
After the game, I watched Graves as his players were on a ladder cutting down the nets.
The Ducks’ coach left the court. He just walked off. He came straight over to his wife, Mary, who was seated immediately behind me on press row. I was writing a column and watching the confetti fall. But the coach wanted to share that big moment with his wife.
Mary Graves stood and leaned forward, stretching over the arena railing from the first row. Her husband leaned over the press table. They met, midair, and hugged, forehead to forehead. I heard every word of their exchange. Kelly Graves said: “That felt so good.” I’m sorry it had to end.