“Before the ball was tipped I was just looking around the Arena and thinking, ‘Wow, we’re actually here! We’re actually getting to play!’
“It was a little different dynamic. You expect to see 13,000-plus people and when you go from that to just a few people, the energy is a lot different. But we’re grateful to be able to play the game. You can’t take it for granted because these days you never know when it’s going to end. With the situation we’re in with COVID, you need to enjoy every moment of it.”
Or as head coach Anthony Grant put it: “In the world we live in, COVID is in control. We have to understand we don’t control this.”
The coronavirus pandemic has been able to do something to Flyers’ basketball that no one else had in a long time.
Last March — when COVID cancelled the Atlantic 10 and NCAA Tournaments — it stopped a Flyers team that seemed all but unstoppable with a 29-2 record, No. 3 national ranking and a 20-game winning streak, the longest in the country.
Now, as this season was about to start, the ever-surging virus scratched four different opponents with whom UD had hoped to open the season. An exhibition with Cedarville was cancelled because of a positive test in the Yellow Jackets’ program.
The season opener with Wichita State in a Sioux Falls tournament was dumped as COVID-ravaged South Dakota. And two home opener opponents – Bellarmine and Alcorn State—were virus victims, as well.
Finally, Monday afternoon a game was made with Eastern Illinois, which had just lost a Nov. 29 opponent in Butler to the virus.
But COVID still showed its might Tuesday night when it managed to all but silence one of the greatest college basketball arenas in the nation.
Ohio Department of Health mandates now prohibit more than 300 people at any indoor gatherings and Tuesday just 55 fans — mostly players’ parents and a few donors, everyone wearing masks — were spaced far apart in the designated 100 and 200 levels of the east side of the Arena.
They were flanked by nearly 100 cardboard faces of other fans who had paid to have their likenesses lashed to empty seats.
It made for an interesting “Smile of the Game” promotion in the second half. Eventually the arena cameras quit showing masked faces on the big overhead video board and focused on the pasteboard stiffs who were flashing pearly whites.
Yet don’t think the fans weren’t animated, especially Renee Johnson, who sat next to her husband Chad. She brought along a big red No. 1 foam finger and soon had reason to wave it vigorously.
Her son Chase, returning to the UD court for the first time in 51 weeks — an exile that saw him drop out of school last January and move back home Ripley, W.Va., to, in his words Wednesday “get my mind right,” after lingering issues from a series of concussions and other issues — put on show.
Although he had played six games over two seasons with the Florida Gators and eight games with the Flyers last season, he had never attempted a 3-point shot in his college career.
Tuesday night he went 3 for 3 from long range and finished with 14 points and seven rebounds to help lead the Flyers to a 66-63 victory over the veteran Panthers.
Ibi Watson led UD with 16 points. Jalen Crutcher had 13 points and six assists and Tshimanga had 10 points and eight rebounds.
While the balanced scoring is something you’d expect from the veteran Flyers, nothing else about Tuesday night was familiar.
It was surreal.
There was no pep band, no cheerleaders, no Red Scare and no press row.
The few media types who were there sat masked and safely distanced from each other at tables set up in the middle of the 100 level seats on the west side of the arena.
Grant, usually smartly dressed in a tailored suit, took the court with a red polo shirt, black mask and a white towel across his shoulder, a tribute to John Thompson Jr., the late Georgetown coach who was a crusader for African American players and coaches.
His whole career Thompson carried a towel as nod to his own mother who he watched carry a towel as she worked tirelessly in the kitchen.
Grant said thanks to the prompting of Patrick Ewing, one of Thompson’s greatest Georgetown players and now the Hoyas coach himself, many coaches, especially black coaches, are carrying a towel in their season opener to pay homage to the Hall of Fame coach.
When it was time for the national anthem — which was a taped rendition by the UD pep band — the Flyers players lined up across the court, but they didn’t lock arms like they did last season.
They did show solidarity, all of them wearing black t-shirts proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” in white lettering. Their uniforms also bore patches that read “United As One,” an NCAA attempt to create a bond among teams during the pandemic.
Teams need support as some players and coaches are sidelined by the virus and schedules are continually altered.
While Eastern Illinois already had played two games — losing to Wisconsin and Marquette — the Flyers had been idle.
“We were texting each other saying, ‘Dang, this team is playing and that team is playing. I wish we could,’” said Watson.
He said he knows what’s at stake though: “Everybody has to sacrifice. We can’t do certain things we want to do, can’t go out like we want. But at the same time it’s helped us stay locked in and stay together as a group. It helped us build chemistry.”
The Flyers had some shining moments Tuesday night — they made their first eight shots and jumped to a 21-7 advantage — but they also had “lulls” as Grant described them.
They were outrebounded, didn’t have a field goal in the final five minutes and missed the front end of two 1-and-1 situations in the final minute.
That allowed Eastern Illinois to cut a 16-point lead to one with 16 seconds left, before Crutcher added two free throws for the final margin.
Two of the most encouraging performances came from the 6-foot-9 Johnson — who Grant commended for his confidence and poise and his defense — and Tshimanga, who made his first start as a Flyer and stayed out of foul trouble, something he could not do last season.
“I’m trying to be in the smart place at the right time,” he said. “I’m trying to avoid silly fouls, stupid fouls.”
Tshimanga practiced what Watson preached when asked about Tuesday night’s experience:
“It felt different, but at the end of the day it was still hoops,” Watson said. “It was basketball.”
And he admitted there was one plus to the COVID restrictions that left UD Arena all but empty.
“I’m not mad because I could hear my mom’s voice in the stands the entire game,” Watson laughed. “I could hear it clearly. I felt good about that.”
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