BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Looking for an escape from the sudden ending to his Wisconsin playing career, Brevin Pritzl went to a movie late Thursday afternoon.
Never mind that "The Way Back" starring Ben Affleck had a basketball storyline. Pritzl was just trying to get his mind off his personal disappointment.
"I couldn't sit there," he said, "and dwell on misery."
He liked the movie. Called it solid. But it wasn't the diversion that he was hoping for.
"No, not at all," said Pritzl, the lone senior in the Badger rotation. "I try to be the most forward thinking, positive about what can happen from everything. But it's really hard to look at the positives when everything ended so abruptly.
"For me, personally, to look at the five years I've had here — all the things I've had to fight through, and the different circumstances — to know that we were on this run and I was playing the best ball of my whole career … and now it's abruptly over."
It was an understandable reaction to Thursday's sobering news that the Big Ten and the NCAA were shutting down their post-season tournaments in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The unprecedented actions were taken among growing concerns for the student-athletes and fears that large gatherings would only spread COVID-19.
From the earliest media dispatches accenting the seriousness of the coronavirus, Pritzl said, "Honestly, I knew that it was super infectious based on all the data that people were giving out. But I didn't know that it was really going to affect everything here as much as it did."
Pritzl got his first reality check Wednesday night "when I was sitting on my couch, watching some random TV shows and at the bottom of the screen, I saw that an NBA game was postponed."
The game in question was between the Utah Jazz and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Soon after, it was learned that a Utah player, Rudy Gobert, had tested positive for the coronavirus.
(A day later, another Jazz player, Donovan Mitchell, also tested positive).
The NBA acted quickly in suspending its season indefinitely.
"We have a team group chat," Pritzl related. "Everybody started texting, 'Hoiberg is sick now' (Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg got ill on the bench Wednesday with what was diagnosed as the flu).
"And with all the news that was going down, at that point, we kind of all said to each other, 'It's over' … once the NBA decides that they're not playing.
"I even made a joke, 'It's been a helluva career, guys.' Everybody kind of laughed."
On Thursday morning, just before jumping on his moped to drive over to the Kohl Center for a scouting report and practice, Pritzl got the word from his teammate Trevor Anderson that the Big Ten had canceled its tournament in Indianapolis.
On top of the NBA suspending operations, he thought to himself, "Ok, the Big Ten Tournament is canceled. There's no way the NCAA Tournament can possibly go on. If you really care about player safety and health and all that, it just wouldn't make any sense."
Pritzl was later on his way to lunch when he checked his phone — "Twitter is probably the quickest place for all the news" — and he read the post that March Madness 2020 had been canceled.
By then, the players had already been prepared for this eventuality by head coach Greg Gard who met with the team around 1 p.m. to discuss the Big Ten's actions in canceling its tournament.
"He sat down and talked to us all," Pritzl recounted of the heart-to-heart with Gard that included the assistant coaches, Joe Krabbenhoft, Dean Oliver and Alando Tucker.
"He said that he was proud of what we were able to accomplish, and he would have loved to see what more we could have accomplished given the roll that we were on.
"Obviously, you could see that he was upset because he wants to keep playing games. Who wouldn't want to keep playing when you were on the kind of run that we were on?
"Eight straight. Ended up tying for the Big Ten title," Pritzl said of the UW's late season resurgence, "and nobody picked us higher than sixth going into the year.
"You're kind of on a run that is unprecedented and it's just tough to see all that momentum — all that effort that we've put in towards building a great year — has now stopped and ended."
After the team meeting, the players commiserated.
"We all took a moment to soak it all in," Pritzl said. "And then we said the basic 'Love you' and 'Stay safe' and everybody kind of went on their way.
"I don't think it's going to hit us until next week when you really think, 'Oh, we should be playing right now in an important game in March Madness.'
"And, then, you'll finally understand, 'Hey, this is all over.'"
The NCAA initially considered playing games without fans and limited family inclusion.
"It's something that I wouldn't necessarily have been uncomfortable with," said Pritzl. "In our closed scrimmages the last couple of years we've blown teams out.
"It would definitely be weird. But I don't think it would have affected players as much as it would have affected people around the game."
Would the players have had any anxiety in competing under any circumstance?
"No, not necessarily, knowing we're all pretty young and healthy in my opinion," Pritzl said. "I wasn't extremely concerned about getting it (the coronavirus).
"But it was more about caring about the people around you. Like if your family is admitted to the game and something happens to one of them and then it's going to be on your conscience."
Pritzl's family and his fiancée's family were planning on being in Indy for the tournament. He caught one before getting on the road and leaving home and advised the other to turn around.
"It's kind of heartbreaking," said Pritzl, a De Pere native, "because you look forward to playing in front of the people you love and now that opportunity is gone for the last time."
As a senior, Pritzl recognized that others were feeling his pain, including a former teammate, Andy Van Vliet who's completing his career at William and Mary.
"I messaged Andy and I talked to a couple of other guys (seniors) and we're all kind of in shock with this abrupt ending," Pritzl said, reiterating. "It's such an abrupt way to face the finish.
"Even for guys who weren't going to make the NCAA tournament, the NIT and CBI (College Basketball Invitation) were still out there and they would have a chance to keep playing."
Pritzl will now turn his attention to getting his Master's in May.
"Both of my classes are pretty much on-line," he said, "so not having face-to-face instruction is not going to have a great impact on me.
"The thing that is going to be weird is if graduation is going to take place — along with the postseason banquet for the basketball team.
"All of these things that were kind of like closing marks to my five years here are now all up in the air if they're going to happen."
Pritzl has explored some of his options to play professionally in Europe. He had been invited to an April tryout event in Virginia that is staged largely for European teams and officials.
"That's my goal," he said. "I've been talking to a few agents around the country and overseas seeing if it would work out. It's about taking these steps to push myself to play at another level.
"Obviously, it's all fluid. Hopefully, I will still get to do something like that, and it could catapult myself into another playing opportunity. I'm just taking one step at a time."
In retrospect, he couldn't help but reflect on the timeline that will define this team and season.
The Howard Moore family tragedy in May. The NCAA denying Micah Potter's eligibility in November and December. Kobe King's transfer in January. Erik Helland's resignation in February.
And now a pandemic erasing the post-season.
How does anyone process all of this?
"A lot of us make jokes about it, like 'This will be a helluva 30 for 30 someday, if they decide to write it,'" he said of ESPN's documentary series.
"But it's true. The amount of things that we combated as a unit and were able to find success is quite stunning and it's something that no one can ever take away from us."
Pointing to the eight-game winning streak and earning a share of the Big Ten title, he said, "When seemingly the cards were dealt against us, we were able to find a way to push through it all.
"After we won on Saturday (at Indiana), I definitely took a moment to think about all the odds that were kind of against us and how we were able to come together as a unit and succeed.
"So many things have happened to us and we've done a good job of heeding the old mantra, 'If things don't happen to you, they happen for you.'
"You try to take everything in stride and focus on your mission and allow that to push you forward. Everything that has happened to us, it helped push us forward to reach bigger things."
After a 5-5 start, the Badgers finished the season on a 16-5 run.
"Nobody can ever take away what we accomplished," Pritzl said. "We earned the No. 1 overall seed in the Big Ten Tournament and we shared the conference title virtually against all odds."
Pritzl expressed compassion for those seniors who were looking forward to their first taste of March Madness, their first dance in the NCAA tournament. Rutgers and Geo Baker came to mind.
"For teams and players that never had the opportunity," said Pritzl who made it to the tourney in four of his first five years, "you work so hard to get this far and for it to not exist, I feel for them."
In the next few days, the next few weeks, Pritzl conceded that it will be difficult "to not think about what if scenarios and what could have been" given the roll that the Badgers were on.
He wasn't sure how he would feel when the last 48 hours finally sink in.
"No tears will be shed on my part," he said. "But sadness will be felt."
