Friday the 13th, the day the basketball stopped bouncing
In this article:
I guess we should have known. It was Friday the 13th, after all, and the writing was on the wall. That was the date in 2020 when the Minnesota girls state high school basketball tournament was cancelled. It was one year ago tomorrow. So much has happened since then – the lockdowns and cancellations and adaptations and more – but we’re still here and still playing basketball. And in less than a month it will be state tournament time once again.
The reality we were facing back then really hit home for me on the Wednesday night prior when the Utah Jazz and San Antonio Spurs walked off the court prior to tipoff following the announcement that Rudy Gobert of the Jazz had tested positive for the Coronavirus. We didn’t even really know what that meant back then, but we knew it wasn’t good.
The next morning I walked into the Maturi Pavilion at the University Minnesota as the teams were warming up for the first game of the day. I will never forget the looks on the faces of the Minnesota State High School League officials. They were just so glum. In my gut I knew something was up, but I had no idea what lay ahead.
I normally take the week off from my day job during the state tournament. I occasionally check email but, for the most part, it’s a nice break from the daily routine and a great opportunity to be totally absorbed in basketball. That day I ended up on a conference call all morning as we tried to determine what to do with our annual national conference that was just two weeks away. The decision was made to cancel and I spent the rest of the day on the phone, only half watching the basketball games while dictating press releases and social media posts and web content. It was a mess.
It’s all a blur at this point, but to the best of my recollection the attendance restrictions were announced that day for Friday’s upcoming games. The next morning the whole tournament was scrapped. Thus began the strangest year of basketball ever.
There was a lot of anger in the days that followed. The kids had been cheated out of the big moment they had worked toward for a decade. The parents, teachers and coaches were upset. Rightly so. But now, with 365 days of perspective behind us, that was really the least of our worries.
The weeks that followed were frightening. The streets were empty. The future was bleak. The unknowns were many. Since that time, nearly 30 million Americans have contracted COVID-19, and over 530,000 of them have died. Around the world there have been 2.6 million deaths. To me the cancellation of the state tournament seems wholly unimportant now, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t fired up for its return in 2021.
Hoping for a championship Saturday
This year’s tournament week will begin on April 6. The trophies will be handed out on April 10. There might be fans allowed, but probably not. I will most likely be ensconced in my home office with two screens going at once, which is how I have spent a lot of evenings in recent weeks. The most important thing is the kids will have the opportunity to play.
The AAU season was weird, to be sure, but it turned out to be pretty good. We were able to evaluate and rank the class of 2024, the AAU state tournament in August was electric, and some bright young stars emerged. We watched the coming out party for 2024 phenom Olivia Olson Olivia Olson 6'1" | CG Benilde-SM | 2024 State MN and the emergence of Liv McGill Liv McGill 5'7" | CG Hopkins | 2024 State MN , whose Metro Stars team played only a couple of tournaments but won the big ones. There were some surprises and some stock risers and the opportunity to compete with the best was appreciated like never before.
Although it started late, and the players have had to wear masks, the high school season has made it all the way to the home stretch and some really good stuff has happened. There is still a lot of uncertainty, of course, but the conversations have now morphed from ‘Do you think there will be a state tournament?’ to ‘Is Hopkins going to win it again?’ That sounds almost normal.
Several of the teams who experienced the disappointment of the cancellation the most have a very real opportunity to return to the big dance. Schools like Hopkins and Farmington, Becker and DeLaSalle, Duluth Marshall and Providence Academy, Minneota and Henning, and Waterville-Elysian-Morristown – the squads that were still playing last March when everything was shut down – all have another shot at a title. Add to that list teams such as Chaska, Minnetonka and Stillwater; Holy Angels and Hill-Murray; Stewartville and New London-Spicer; and more. Section play promises to be entertaining.
Regardless of who gets there, regardless of who wins, the most important thing is that we make it to Championship Saturday in 2021. It’s only four weeks away.
Top imaged used by licensed permission from Shutterstock