Illinois coach Brad Underwood was midway through practice Thursday at Hinkle Fieldhouse, preparing for the following day’s Big Ten Tournament game, when a staffer whispered in his ear.
The games in Indianapolis are off.
On a court synonymous with the sanctity of the sport, Underwood let his players finish practice before he delivered the jarring news. They returned to their hotel, showered, packed and got on the bus, eating boxed lunches on their way back to campus.
News got worse as they headed to Champaign: The season was over.
No Big Ten Tournament. No NCAA Tournament. No shining moments.
“There wasn’t a dry eye in there,” Underwood said at a Friday news conference on campus, describing a team meeting at the Ubben practice facility. “That’s when you know people are invested and they’ve bought into everything we’re doing. I couldn’t be prouder of that group of guys. Yet my heart aches for them.”
After they assembled Illinois’ best season in a decade and were poised to play in the program’s first NCAA Tournament since 2013, players are grappling with the abrupt end to the season due to the spread of the coronavirus. To the victors goes the spoiled season.
“I put a lot of work in,” star guard Ayo Dosunmu told reporters in Champaign earlier this week. “I put a lot of sweat into my game, so when it’s time to show it, I’m up for it.”
Underwood sounded fired up too.
“We’re going there to win,” he said of the Big Ten Tournament.
Conference commissioners and NCAA President Mark Emmert showed exemplary leadership in exercising caution. They made the right call, Underwood and Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman said.
“This is bigger than sports,” Whitman said.
That doesn’t mean we have to deny there’s an emotional sting. Teams that had put together long-awaited breakout seasons now are feeling as if they’re on the heartbreak end of an abrupt breakup.
Imagine Illinois players absorbing this news after going 21-10 and finishing fourth in the Big Ten with the program’s best conference record (13-7) since 2004-05.
“We’re an NCAA Tournament team and there was no doubt about it,” Underwood said. “You can put an asterisk by it, whatever you want.
“In all my years, this team I will always remember. It won’t be because we didn’t play in the NCAA. It will be because of all the fond memories and hard work and the character. I had a blast coaching this team.”
Imagine Rutgers (20-11), which hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1991, or Penn State (21-10), which hadn’t been invited since 2011. Senior forward Lamar Stevens was seven points from becoming the Nittany Lions’ all-time leading scorer.
Now what?
Dosunmu might enter the NBA draft. Have fans seen him play his last game in an Illinois uniform?
Most players have a moment to absorb that they’ve played their final college game. After beating Iowa at the State Farm Center in the regular-season finale Sunday, Dosunmu seemed to soak in the atmosphere, standing on the court and basking in cheers from adoring fans.
Turns out, that was it for Dosunmu and the 2019-20 Illini.
They thought so much more was to come.
Said Underwood: “We’ll wait till next year.”
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