College basketball’s last fans allowed, and now comes a tournament like none before
Joey Vajgrt bought the tickets and drove from his house in Washington to the airport in Portland and then flew to Denver and then drove all the way across Kansas in a rented car, so you’re gosh-dang right he’s in Section 231, Row 5, set to watch two games in which he has zero rooting interest.
He could be among the last fans in America to watch college basketball in person this season.
Vajgrt is a lifelong Kansas basketball fan. He always wanted to get back for a Big 12 tournament. He picked this one. Damn the luck, and here’s what’s worse: He flew into Denver because airfare to Kansas City was too expensive.
“I was definitely looking forward to watching every single game,” he said.
Vajgrt figures the trip will cost $1,200 — maybe more. And the only basketball he’ll see is the Wednesday night games featuring the Big 12’s worst four men’s basketball teams.
The ticket could be something like a weird collector’s item. Wednesday’s games will be among the last in college basketball with crowds until November.
The Big 12 and other leagues — and the NCAA Tournament, starting next week — are keeping fans out of arenas in an attempt to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The sport’s most important games will be played to the soundtrack of squeaking shoes and coaches’ voices echoing inside empty venues.
NCAA Tournaments tend to run together — without looking it up, how many of you can name each of the last five NCAA champions?
But this one will be remembered forever — March Muteness. One Silent Moment. Dance like nobody’s watching.
Really, in the end, there was not much of a choice. The World Health Organization has now declared this coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. This is a disease without cure or vaccine, with tests still expensive and hard to find for some, and with a fatality rate higher than the flu and comparable to the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918.
Health experts are all but begging Americans to avoid large crowds. Encouraging tens of thousands of people to travel across the country to pack gyms and then go back to their homes became indefensible.
On the bright side: Everyone wants something on TV during quarantine, right?
“It’ll be the highest-rated television tournament that anybody’s ever seen,” Jayhawks coach Bill Self joked.
This tournament will be like none before it and, hopefully, like none after. All kinds of theories can be pushed. Are higher seeds given an advantage because an arena full of neutral fans can’t hop on a Cinderella when it’s late and close? Are lower seeds better positioned now to catch a heavy favorite flat?
The NCAA could move games to smaller arenas without the need for fans — the Final Four is unlikely to be held at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium now. Teams could be seeded differently, with travel distances prioritized.
Could the tournament start but then the virus spread so quickly that the second weekend or Final Four is postponed, or even canceled?
Nobody can know.
Vajgrt was one of six people I talked to on the 200-level concourse Wednesday night at Sprint Center. One was a vendor and wouldn’t give me his real name — he asked I call him Pooky here because it would make his sister laugh — but he said he was going to be glad to be away from this place the next few days.
“Everyone talks about the players, but it’s people like us who are most exposed,” he said.
Two other fans didn’t want to talk on the record, though one said he considered the risks to be way overblown.
Colin McNamara had planned on coming with four friends with whom he graduated from Iowa State. Two stayed home, and McNamara sent them what he described as “an edgy text.” One of them took it the wrong way, and now they may or may not be in a fight.
“I just don’t think we should be changing how we live based on fear,” he said. “I’m not going to do that. That’s not how I want to live.”
Marty Wright is a K-State fan from Council Grove who’s been coming to this tournament for 35 years with his brother and some friends. He noted that he’s 60 years old, so he’s considered more vulnerable, but he thought he should be able to decide whether he’s willing to take the risk.
“But after all these years we’re in it more for the fellowship than the games anyway,” he said. “We’ve got three wives that’ve already texted: ‘Hey, are you coming home now?’ So they think we should come home, but we’ll stay.”
Vajgrt is in a similar situation. Once you make the commitment to travel somewhere, you’re sort of all-in. He was bummed that his trip got flipped on its head, but he and his family plan to make the most of it.
Maybe they’ll hit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. The World War I Museum. The Nelson-Adkins.
“We’ll turn it into a Kansas City weekend,” he said. “Probably eat more barbecue.”
This story has a happy ending, too. Vajgrt and I talked before the Big 12 had officially announced fans would not be allowed the rest of the week. At the time, Vajgrt was hoping for a credit he could use for future tournaments.
I wanted to make sure he knew the league was offering refunds, so I messaged him.
“I guess I’ll be buying $270 worth of burnt ends and whiskey this weekend,” he wrote back.
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 8:14 PM.