On March 12, 2020, 64 Division I women’s college basketball teams had their NCAA Tournament hopes crushed.
They weren’t crushed by a bad game, or by a more talented opponent. They were crushed by COVID-19. The threat of the virus forced the NCAA to cancel the tournament for the first time in history.
In her 16-year college coaching career, Jackson State’s Tomekia Reed said she’s never experienced something like this. Telling her team that the tournament was cancelled was incredibly painful.
“I didn't have an answer,” Reed said. “And it tore me up because they were looking for me, you know, to get them through. But at the time, I was looking for somebody to get through.”
The cancellation is especially devastating for Jackson State and other mid-majors -- the 286 teams outside of the Power Five conferences -- who made the round of 64. For them, getting back to the tournament means overcoming very unfavorable odds.
Out of mid-major teams, only about one in 10 made the tournament this year.
Conversely, out of 65 high-major teams, 30 made the tournament this year. That’s almost a 50-50 shot.
And, now that the season is over, mid-majors have to rebuild their rosters and replace the senior stars they might be losing. But it’s also harder for them to find comparable talent.
High-level recruits are more likely to go to high-major schools. This year, only 12 of the top 100 recruits in the class of 2020 are committed to schools outside the Power Five.
Yet regardless of the odds against them, mid-majors are starting to move forward, even while they mourn the unfinished seasons they’re leaving behind.
Strong seasons
At William & Mary, junior guard Nyla Pollard said things were really starting to come together.
“The saying is you're only as strong as your weakest link,” Pollard said. “And I think when your weakest link is also dedicated to the program, you have a really strong program.”
A preseason poll predicted the team would finish ranked No. 7 in the Colonial Athletic Association.
By season’s end, the Tribe tallied its most overall wins (21), its most conference wins (12), and its highest CAA tournament ranking (3rd) in school history.
When her coach broke the bad news about the tournament, Pollard was stunned.
“It was an unprecedented moment. There's never been a feeling like that in any of the teams or basketball experiences I've had.”
At about noon, she was in her hotel room in Elon, North Carolina, preparing for the Tribe’s first game in the CAA tournament. Then she got a call to meet with the rest of the team downstairs.
“It was just so emotional,” Pollard said. “What do you say to a group of girls who were looking forward to finally getting an opportunity to prove themselves in the tournament, who now don't get that opportunity?”
“That's it, you know, you'll never get to know how it ends. And I think that's the hardest part, just never knowing what could have happened,” she said.
The CAA planned to send its champion and runner-up to the NCAAs, and William & Mary sophomore guard Eva Hodgson said the Tribe was a strong contender.
“Our team had something special this year,” Hodgson said. “We had a drive that could have taken us really far. And I think we definitely could have been the first team to go to the NCAA Tournament in history.”
For Reed and her team, a Big Dance berth was more than a possibility. It was, for a moment, a reality.
Jackson State was on a bus headed to Birmingham, Alabama on March 12 for the semifinals of the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament when Lasonia Elliott, Jackson State’s assistant athletic director, called Reed.
“She said, ‘Hey, get off in Tuscaloosa. You guys go eat a really good meal, feed the girls, whatever they want to eat. And then I want y'all to prepare to head back this way.’”
Elliot explained that the SWAC tournament was cancelled, but because the Tigers were the highest seed left in the competition, they automatically advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
“So, we got off, I went into the restaurant, the girls were all sitting down,” Reed said. “I came in last and I was celebrating. ‘Yeah, SWAC champs, we’re going to the NCAA Tournament. We can't play the SWAC tournament, but we’re going to the NCAA Tournament.’”
Then, all of a sudden, she got the text that ended her team’s season altogether.
“I said, ‘Man, how do I come behind that huge celebration to tell them that this is canceled too,’” Reed said. “It was just a wham, wham, bam, bam, back to back to back.”
The moment that followed was more than sobering. It was heartbreaking.
“I was in tears. I was choked up, I could barely talk to them,” Reed said. “They just had this look on their faces like, ‘But we worked so hard,’ you know. And my seniors were like, ‘What are we going to do now?’”
Campbell University coach Ronny Fisher had a couple seniors on his team that saw excellent seasons cut short, too. Hayley Barber and Kianna Speight anchored the Camels all year.
“Both had played through multiple surgeries and just persevered their whole careers,” Fisher said. “Those two just embodied what we're all about.”
Barber surpassed every expectation her coach had for her in four years at Campbell.
“After her freshman year, I didn't imagine that she would be an all conference player, and her after senior year, she was one of the best players in our league,” he said.
Speight spent the majority of her career at Davidson and was a late addition to the squad, but she made her mark nonetheless.
“She's actually the first fifth-year transfer I've taken,” Fisher said. “She brought a toughness and a demeanor to our team that we didn't have.”
The Camels were actually on the court when Fisher heard about the cancellation.
“We had a 55-minute workout of the day of our Thursday game,” he said. “Halfway through the workout, our associate commissioner came in and told me the news.”
It was the most abrupt ending, you're literally on the court practicing. And then I say, ‘Okay, guys, let's go in the locker room.’ And we just spent about an hour in a locker room talking.”
A ‘greater appreciation’
Kent State coach Todd Starkey had a young team this year. So, when he told them their season was over, he knew the shock and teary eyes were inevitable.
“It was just kind of like, Is this real?” Starkey said. “Is this real life? Is this really happening? And I think the reality of what was going on around the country, now hit home, it was personal.”
What he didn’t know was that his young group, in the midst of their heartache, would try to put a positive spin on the situation. And while he was surprised initially, it made sense when he thought about the discussions they’d had all season.
“The number one thing we talked about as a team, is we want to be an adaptable team,” Starkey said. “And the number one thing we have to be as leaders as adaptable as well.”
“We are in unprecedented times and and and you can either shy from it or you can embrace it,” he said.
As the offseason continues, Starkey emphasized the need for his players to continue seeing the bigger picture.
“The actual boots on the ground of this pandemic are the healthcare workers and people that are actually having to do those things, that are in life and death situations,” he said.
“That gives us the immediate perspective that athletics are one thing, but it's not the ultimate thing that we have to think about.”
Fisher also took some time to reflect once the emotions of the cancellation died down. Even though his team’s season ended abruptly, he’s still proud of what they accomplished.
“This is my first my 29th year of coaching. Some some years you end with a really good vibe and other years the vibe is not that great,” he said. “This year, it was a great vibe. And it's because of the kids we had and their commitment to our program and their commitment to each other. It was special.”
And, he recognized that some NCAA teams hardly got to play before their seasons concluded.
“We were able to play a complete season,” Fisher said. “You have spring sports that weren't even able to complete half the regular season.”
“I look at it that we were blessed to have the journey we were on. And I wish we would have had that opportunity in the postseason, but I'm very appreciative of what we did have,” he said.
Reed’s focus is on making sure her team gets another opportunity in the postseason next year.
“Now you’ve got to prove a bigger point, because it was taken away,” she said. “So that thought brought me out of the slump I was in, the depression that I was slipping into.”
Even though there are a lot of unknowns about next season, she wants her players to keep training hard.
“You are a champion,” she tells them. “Champions don't take breaks. Champions may fall, but you rise.”
As for Pollard, she’s just happy to have another year of eligibility left.
“I'm going to appreciate it so much more once we get it back,” she said. “I think that's so ironic but it's so beautiful too that I’m going into my senior year, which is my last year with this greater appreciation for the game I played than I've ever had before.”
“Because at any moment, clearly, it can be taken away from you.”
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