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Title shots gone for Hound athletes

PORTALES — There they were, the Eastern New Mexico University women’s basketball players and coaches, hanging out together on campus Thursday afternoon, a day before they were supposed to visit Lubbock for a game against Texas A&M-Commerce in the NCAA Division II tournament’s opening round.

There they were, Eastern New Mexico head track & field coach Jeff Kavalunas and Greyhound athlete Ivar Moinat, in Birmingham, Alabama, preparing for Moinat to compete in the NCAA Division II 800-meter run.

But then came the announcement from NCAA president Mark Emmert and the Board of Governors that the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, along with all remaining winter and spring NCAA championships had been axed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 is really wreaking havoc on the sports world.

Aside from the virus’ serious health risks, it has shattered the sports scene, with the National Basketball Association suspending its season on Wednesday, and the rest of sports taking similar measures on Thursday. No more Major League Baseball spring training. The National Hockey League and Major League Soccer are on hold. The Masters has been postponed indefinitely. The Boston Marathon will be in September instead of April.

And perhaps the biggest hit of all — March without the Madness, at least the basketball kind.

The NCAA decision hit home in Portales, ending the Eastern New Mexico women’s season and with it the Greyhounds’ shot at a national title. Kavalunas and Moinat had to come home, without even a chance for Moinat to put his months of training to the test.

Safety precautions are of course necessary. Filed under ‘b’ for bummer, but necessary.

“Obviously we’re very disappointed,” ENMU head women’s coach Josh Prock said. “But a lot smarter people are making the right decision. At the end of the day people have to make a decision that’s best for the whole. As disappointed as we are, we understand people made the right decision.”

“I certainly commend everybody for being proactive,” Kavalunas said. “Those are the measures that needed to be done, the steps that needed to be taken.”

If Kavalunas and Moinat had still been in Portales when Thursday’s news broke, it would have been disappointing enough. But they had already made the trek eastward to Alabama.

“Yeah, we were there,” Kavalunas said. “We got in Wednesday, and Thursday through the morning we were out there (practicing).”

An announcement had previously been made that the championships would take place without fans, essential personnel only.

“We continued to get ready,” Kavalunas recalled, “and later that day they made the final announcement. ... Pretty heartbreaking, especially when you’re already there, getting ready.”

Prock says the women’s basketball players and coaches were involved in a team activity after practice Thursday afternoon when they saw on ESPN that the NCAA had canceled the Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. “So we figured it was going to affect Division II, too,” Prock said. “That’s what happened, and we moved on and realized the season was over.”

From an invitation to the dance to the end of the dance before it even began.

“I’m sure the sentiments are shared by all the other teams that were in there,” Prock said. “Everyone thought they had a chance, and next you know, it’s not there anymore. But the NCAA made the right decision.”

Moinat had already traveled a long way to run for Eastern New Mexico — all the way from the Netherlands.

“He’s here to compete for a national championship,” Kavalunas said. “A lot of hard work went into it. He was ready to go. It was pretty heartbreaking to have to come back early.”

Especially after working so hard to earn a spot in Birmingham.

“We were out there (at Greyhound Stadium) Christmas morning getting the training in,” Kavalunas said.

Friday, Kavalunas and Prock found out that the virus will affect their offseason activities as well.

“There’s no on- and off-campus recruiting until April 15,” Prock said. “It definitely sets recruiting back a little bit. Everything’s on hold.”

“Every spring sports program is going through the same thing,” Kavalunas said. “It’s a pretty level playing field there. There are a number of kids we were planning to have on campus for visits next week. ... They want us to hold off on getting on- and off-campus recruiting. ... It’ll be hard not to recruit and not bring in the best kids we can, to sit back and not do anything.”

It’s a bizarre turn for the world, including the microcosm of sports.

“It really is,” Prock said. “I’ve been involved in the NCAA for a long time and definitely have never been through anything like that. It’s definitely charting different waters for sure.”

“The last 36 hours, 48 hours, our world’s been changing tremendously,” Kavalunas said. “It’s been continuing to change hour by hour.”

Perhaps it will be sooner not later that the threat ends and life resumes as it had before.

“That’s the hope,” Prock said, “that everything will get back to normal — not just for us but for everybody.”