A shot cut short by coronavirus
Lake Brantley basketball standout disappointed by end of season.
John Mooney knew his Notre Dame team wasn’t going to be projected by anybody outside South Bend — and maybe anybody outside the Fighting Irish locker room — to win this year’s Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament.
After all, the Irish went 10-10 in conference play during a 19-12 regular season and entered the tournament as the No. 7 seed. But Mooney, a former Lake Brantley standout and Notre Dame’s All-Atlantic Coast Conference power forward, believed his underdog squad had a chance to beat the odds before the coronavirus pandemic shut down college basketball and his senior season.
Mooney’s college career unceremoniously ended the day after Notre Dame opened its postseason by rolling to an 80-58 win against Boston College on March 11 at the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, N.C. The league canceled the remainder of the tournament a day later, just hours before
“It was weird. … There was talk the morning of the game that we would go without fans in the arena. I was good with that. The team was good with that.
As the day went on we started hearing that we wouldn’t play at all.”
— John Mooney, Notre Dame power forward, former Lake Brantley standout
the Irish were to take the court for a quarterfinal game against reigning national champ Virginia (23-7), the second seed.
“That was disappointing for sure,” Mooney said in a phone interview this week. “I think we were playing our best ball at the end of the year. We had a shot to make a run and obviously it was cut short.”
Notre Dame won five of its final seven games. In one of those losses, the Irish pushed ACC regular-season champ FSU (26-5) to the brink of defeat before wasting a 13-point lead and falling 73-71. Many analysts said that stinging loss probably cost the Irish any chance at gaining an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
That would mean Notre Dame’s only path to the Big Dance was to win the ACC Tournament. TeamRankings.com gave the Irish just a 4% chance of doing so.
Mooney was a lot more optimistic ahead of the tournament rematch with Virginia that was canceled. The Irish lost 50-49 in overtime at Virginia in its regularseason meeting with the Cavaliers. Mooney had 11 points and 14 rebounds in that defensive duel.
“We had some revenge on our mind against Virginia,” he said this week. “The path was in front of us. Our goal was to win the whole thing.”
But the path was blocked by a virus that has impacted the world.
“It was weird. … There was talk the morning of the game that we would go without fans in the arena. I was good with that. The team was good with that,” he said. “As the day went on we started hearing that we wouldn’t play at all.”
The team returned a day after the cancellation to Notre Dame’s campus, which was quiet with spring break underway, and players were told to go home with school closed indefinitely.
“I’ve been back [in Longwood] with my family for a couple of weeks now,” Mooney said. “That’s been great. And I’ve been staying in touch with my teammates and coaches. Pretty much just reminiscing. It’s fun to look back to the memories you made with your teammates.”
Mooney, who completed his degree in business management and made the 2020 All-ACC Academic Team, said he has much to be thankful for following a fouryear college career that saw him improve each season.
The 6-foot-9, 245-pound power forward was third-team All-ACC and the league’s leading rebounder as a junior and rose to first-team all-conference status this season, after averaging 16.5 points and 12.8 rebounds per game and leading the nation with 25 double-double games. He set an ACC record with 16 double-doubles in 20 conference games, breaking a record set by former NBA great Tim Duncan, and was complimented by league coaches and his own for being a selfless team player.
“Johnny carries a lot of clout in our league when you hear the other coaches,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said in the preseason. “We take him for granted — he just rolls out of bed and goes 15 [points] and 12 [rebounds] like it’s nothing.”
Mooney, who was the Orlando Sentinel area Player of the Year as a high school senior, wants to continue to play the game as a professional. He is not listed as one of the likely 60 NBA draft picks by most sites dedicated to the sport, including NBAdraft.net. But NBAscoutinglive.com states Mooney “may be a borderline second round candidate for the 2020 NBA Draft.”
“There’s certainly a chance and I would love to play here,” Mooney said of the NBA. “That would be the primary goal. If that doesn’t work out, I would love to play in Europe. I would love to keep my career going for as long as I can.”