At about 11:30 am on Wednesday, former Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. That was about the last bit of normalcy we saw in the local sports world this week.
Shortly after 12 pm, the Lincoln/Lancaster County Health Department made the determination that no fans would be allowed in to watch the Nebraska Boys State Basketball Tournament taking place in Lincoln because of COVID-19 virus concerns.
From that point on, you couldn't take your eyes of Twitter. The cancelations came in so fast, it was hard to keep up. It started with some conference basketball tournaments and the bombshell that changed it all was the NBA suspending its season on Wednesday night. The NHL and Major League Baseball joined the NBA.
By Thursday, all conference basketball tournaments were shut down, and then the NCAA canceled their remaining winter and spring championship events/seasons.
No March Madness. No Road to Omaha. No WNIT for the Nebraska women's basketball team. No NCAA Wrestling tournament for Mark Manning's team. No Indoor Track & Field national championships this week. An incomplete first season for first-year Husker baseball coach Will Bolt. All of it, done. Over.
I don't think it has even hit us yet how much the next several months of our lives are going to change. What does it mean for high school and youth sports moving forward? No word on that, but you have to think even their seasons are going to be affected, but the Nebraska State Boys Basketball Tournament still continues in Lincoln.
As for Thursday, we don't have an official word on the Apr. 19 Red-White spring game. In-person classes at UNL have been suspended for the foreseeable future and across the entire Big Ten.
Nebraska is taking a day-to-day approach on things. They haven't made any official statements about the spring game, other than saying next week's football practices remain as scheduled. LSU also continues to hold spring football practice, but closed out the media from taking photos on Thursday. The Huskers are supposed to practice again on Saturday. The Big Ten has also suspended all on and off-campus recruiting for the foreseeable future - meaning no unofficial or official visitors.
The Huskers still held their Pro Day in Lincoln on Thursday, as about 20 different NFL teams made their way to watch. However, you have to think Thursday could be the last Pro Day we see at any school over this draft cycle.
The scary thing is nobody knows what's next. Nobody knows how bad this is going to get, but for it to have this type of impact already tells you how real this situation has become.
What will be next? Shopping malls? Movie theaters? Restaurants? In Italy, only grocery stores and pharmacies are allowed to be open. Could we reach that level? There are so many things we don't know right now, but Thursday told us everything. This is real and nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.
