Cole Anthony is washing his hands ‘22 times a day’ as ACC confronts coronavirus threat
Brandon Robinson, the North Carolina senior guard, could not name the last time he played a basketball game inside an empty gym, without spectators. When confronted with the idea on Tuesday, he thought that perhaps he’d never experienced such a thing.
“I haven’t played a game without fans my whole life, you know?” Robinson said after he helped lead the Tar Heels to an 78-56 victory against Virginia Tech on Tuesday night in the ACC tournament. “From rec ball (on) — it’s just, that’s basketball,” with fans in attendance.
By the time UNC began playing at the Greensboro Coliseum on Tuesday, several players had already become aware of what was happening in other conferences around the country. Amid the threat of coronavirus, the Ivy League canceled its conference tournament.
The Mid-American Conference, meanwhile, closed its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to the general public. Both of those tournaments will play out later this week in Cleveland without fans in attendance.
Around the country, the threat of coronavirus, or COVID-19, has forced businesses to alter travel plans or reschedule conferences. Some companies have recommended that employees work from home. The outbreak, or the concern of one, has come in college basketball’s most important month, and it has forced college and professional sports leagues to take precautions and consider extreme measures.
Four professional sports leagues, including the NBA, the NHL and Major League Baseball, have closed their locker rooms to media, citing concerns over spread of the virus. The NCAA has not yet decided to what degree, if any, its basketball tournaments might be affected in the coming weeks. In a statement on Tuesday, the NCAA said it would reach decisions “in the coming days.”
With some health leaders recommending self-quarantines to stop the spread of COVID-19, one possibility is that the NCAA tournament could mandate that games be played in empty arenas, without fans. Players at the ACC tournament on Tuesday considered the hypothetical of what that would be like, to compete in front of empty stands.
“That would be, like, super weird,” Trey McGowens, a Pittsburgh guard, said after his team’s victory against Wake Forest. “I mean, we’d definitely have to bring our own energy. I don’t think it’ll happen. I hope not.”
How the ACC is responding to coronavirus
The only change the ACC has made, so far, is in limiting media access after games. Instead of opening the locker rooms to reporters after games, as the conference has always done, league officials on Tuesday brought players to breakout rooms for postgame interviews.
The conference turned a players’ lounge and arcade into one interview area. It created another interview space in a photographers’ work room. In those two areas, players stood behind ropes while cameramen and reporters crowded in front of them.
Not long after North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Tuesday declared a state of emergency related to the threat of a coronavirus outbreak, the ACC released a statement in which it said that the tournament would go on as planned. The league recommended that members of at-risk populations exercise caution in attending. That wasn’t lost on Roy Williams, the UNC coach.
“On a humorous note, I get frustrated because they talk about old people and they started that at 60,” Williams said after his team’s victory. “I’m 69, God almighty. So that’s the humorous thing. ... But it’s not a humorous situation, I mean it really is not.”
In an effort to protect himself, Robinson, the UNC senior, said he has been washing his hands “every second.” He is not alone, among his teammates, in his attempts to minimize the risk of contracting coronavirus.
“We’re washing our hands probably 22 times a day,” Cole Anthony, the freshman point guard, said after he scored 10 points in the Tar Heels’ victory. “Beyond that, hoping that school goes online for the rest of the year. I know some schools have done that.”
Williams, meanwhile, said he watched CNN “most of the day” on Tuesday so he could follow news related to COVID-19. After his team’s game, he spoke of efforts to quarantine parts of New York state, and also expressed frustration at varying news accounts of the severity of the threat coronavirus poses.
For at least part of the day on Tuesday, Williams was not a basketball coach but a citizen in search of information. At times the pursuit of it, he said, left him feeling “like we’re in two different countries.”
“It’s a terrible situation,” Williams said. “I mean, it’s scary. I mean, at the end of the game I was mad at myself because I shook hands with all the other guys and I meant to give them the elbow hit, but, no, it’s — this is not a good situation in our country right now.
“And we don’t have a great handle on what’s going to happen next.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 5:40 AM.
