Syracuse ended its regular season Sunday against Miami, another sore closing effort bookended by Elijah Hughes sitting the second half with a suspected head injury. The Orange looked dead (again) and positioning themselves to play North Carolina in round two of its conference tournament didn’t help their pulse. They hadn’t beaten UNC since 2014 (0-8 since).
Nothing went as expected with Syracuse this year. See Hughes: positioned to take on the team’s scoring load, doing so and then more with a season worth of ACC Player of the Year. The conference named him to its first team last week. After a transfer season from East Carolina where he needed to sit (NCAA rules) and last year where he shot off pressure that the team’s other stars drew, he received the attention this year.
That came in both defense and media attention. Last semester, he answered questions about a mass protest on campus. More recently: a global pandemic.
Wednesday was one of the more surreal days of my life. Coronavirus creeped into the sports world with news that media would be barred from locker rooms and a 6-8 foot rule put in place over the weekend. Prior to Tuesday’s Celtics game, which we never imagined would’ve been the last played for at least 30 days, Brian Scalabrine sat far across from Brad Stevens and used all his length to reach the microphone to Stevens’ face.
Games without fans loomed, but never a suspension. So when Wednesday began, I hit the library to write a profile of a local prep player. Things throughout that afternoon. I couldn’t take my eyes off Twitter as 4 p.m. became 8. The Warriors barred fans and the NCAA announced March Madness would follow.
The ridiculous pace of the news cycle during my lifetime sped up even more that afternoon. As I finally submitted my profile and jumped into the first half of the Syracuse game, at that time bound to be the last played in front of fans for the foreseeable future, Rudy Gobert got diagnosed with coronavirus.
It was a wrap. Within one minute, Woj reported the NBA suspended its season. I watched and savored every minute of that Orange game. I knew it’d be the last sports we watched for a long time.
SU ran UNC off the court. They slid seamlessly in the zone unlike they had all year. The Tar Heels threw passes to Syracuse’s guards, got cut off at the rim and Hughes drilled two shots in the lane before the halftime buzzer to cap a 15-0 run. As he and his teammates entered the locker room, you could see them clenching to avoid outstretched hands.
Syracuse would lead by as many as 30 in a blowout victory. Hughes dropped 30 points in what will likely be his last game in orange, he rose to NBA status this year — and good for him. Jim Boeheim smiled as brightly as he had all year. He knew he got a monkey off his back. Even if UNC was the 14 seed, they still smoked Syracuse a week prior. Now Boeheim got Roy Williams back when it mattered. He said he hoped they’d play again…
They wouldn’t. As we suspected that night, the ACC called the tournament the next day. Syracuse sports soon got cancelled until the fall (per the ACC directive). The basketball team would’ve likely never made March Madness, but won its final game playing the best it had all season. Our Syracuse Basketball Podcast with James Szuba that night.
With the Celtics supposed to play the Bucks last night, we went live on Celtics Post Game to talk about where we’re headed next instead. Joe Choquette and I broke down how we got to this point so quickly. We presented the facts, our gripes with disaster response and looked at how the NBA could creatively start the season again in the future.
Boston’s Jaylen Brown put it poignantly the morning for his season got postponed. It’s a lesson for everyone, this isn’t about us. We’re all affected, some worse than others. My colleague Keith Smith quit his day job to cover the NBA. Stadium workers and those connected to sporting events will suffer while these leagues will recover. Millions of elderly and immune-deficient people may die, not just numbers, people. Grandparents, aunts, sisters, etc. Don’t think about why we’re going to steep precautions, think of the cost of not doing the same in the past.
I won’t let the Nets and Knicks off the hook. Fortunately, the Knicks didn’t either. The news cycle could’ve allowed them to escape from anyone realized they blast their biggest fan — Spike Lee — in a press release following their public spat last week. Instead, they got exposed as the only team pushing to continue the season through the coronavirus pandemic. Last week (before the news), I broke down that and the Nets, who slid by a little easier after firing their coach in what looks like it came after Kenny Atkinson benched Deandre Jordan — who Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant mandated come as a package deal to Brooklyn. My friends Obas and Dan joined #DomeTheory to discuss the state of New York hoops. How’s a city so synonymous with basketball so bad professionally?
You can subscribe and rate Dome Theory, formerly The Bobcast, on any platform above. It’d be much appreciated. With sports gone for the foreseeable future, I plan to ramp up my interviewing effort there. I’ll be writing more about music, reflecting, reading and preparing for a big opportunity ahead this summer — along with dumping some leftover reporting from these Celtics and Syracuse seasons.
We’ll get through this with some creativity. I see some sports freelancers bemoaning the end of their livelihood. But there’s plenty more out there, I’m savoring the opportunity to experiment and flash some versatility here. I hope you’ll be along for the ride. Here’s to sports returning sooner rather than later.
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