The sports world has been shut down due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The NBA and NHL seasons are suspended, Major League Baseball’s Opening Day has been put on hold, the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments cancelled.
The list of events and seasons affected is long. But for few was the end as painful as the Randolph-Macon College men’s basketball team.
The Yellow Jackets were ranked No. 3 in the country and on March 7 beat the College of New Jersey, 85-71, to advance to the Division III Sweet 16 for the second year in a row.
Randolph-Macon is 15 miles north of Richmond and 90 miles south of Washington. This was a big deal. The Yellow Jackets have never won a Division III national title and they had a legitimate chance. They were four wins from making history.
Later on March 7, Randolph-Macon learned it would be hosting 13th-ranked Yeshiva on the following Friday, March 13. Crenshaw Gymnasium would be sold out. The small campus was ready. Two days later, Yellow Jackets head coach Josh Merkel found out that the game would be played in an empty gym because of coronavirus concerns.
“In the back of my mind I was thinking, ‘I just want this game to happen,’” Merkel told NBC Sports Washington.
Still continuing to prepare for the Sweet 16, Randolph-Macon practiced at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 12 – the day before the Sweet 16 game with Yeshiva. But the evening prior, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 and the NBA season was suspended. The world was grinding to a halt.
“At 12:45 [p.m.], one of our guys came out of the locker room with his phone and said ‘Did you see the news?’” Merkel recalled.
At that moment, the ACC, Big East, and other Division I conferences had cancelled postseason tournaments. Merkel knew.
“At that moment I thought ‘We’re probably not going to play this game tomorrow,’” Merkel said.
Later that afternoon, the NCAA cancelled all winter championships and spring seasons, putting an end to Randolph-Macon’s title dreams.
The Yellow Jackets have a storied men’s basketball tradition. Paul Webb won 315 games in 19 seasons at Macon before leaving for Old Dominion in 1975. Hal Nunnally replaced Webb and led the Jackets to 10 more 20-win seasons or better over a 24-year stretch.
Mike Rhoades followed Nunnally and went 197-76 in his ten seasons in Ashland. Rhoades is now the head coach at VCU. Nathan Davis was hired to replace Rhoades and he led the Yellow Jackets to the NCAA Tournament in all six seasons. Davis left in 2015 for the head coaching position at Bucknell. Despite the consistent success, Randolph-Macon has only reached the Final Four once in school history (2010).
Even though the season was cancelled on Thursday, the team met at Cracker Barrel on Friday morning for its scheduled pregame meal.
“That’s where we had a chance to reflect. We celebrated the seniors,” Merkel said.
After breakfast, the team went back to campus for a film session looking back at the season.
“There was some anger and some sadness. You felt for the seniors,” Merkel said. “There were some tears. Some funny moments. Guys telling stories. It was therapeutic.”
For the seniors, there was never a final game. No closure for Korey Turner, Corey Bays or Kent Kilgroe. Despite the devastation, they showed a maturity that impressed Merkel.
The Yellow Jackets finished 28-2, tying a school-record for wins. They finished third in the final D3hoops.com poll. They won the ODAC regular season and postseason championships. It was a great year. They just didn’t get to finish it and that stings whether you play basketball at Kentucky or Maryland or at tiny Randolph-Macon.
“I think our guys felt proud of what they did. They had a full body of work,” Merkel said. “That’s why I feel for the spring sports. Our guys were able to play 30 games.”
Merkel saw that play out at his own school, too. On the same day that Randolph-Macon’s basketball team found out its run to the school’s first national championship was over, the top-ranked Division III baseball team in the country was playing York College (Pa). The Yellow Jackets won and improved to 15-1 on the young season. It would be their final record.
Unlike basketball, the baseball team had an opportunity for some closure. Randolph-Macon head coach Ray Hedrick reached out to his seniors on Tuesday and told them “It was not a matter of if, it was a matter of when” the season would be cancelled.
With some doubt in the air about the game against York being played, Hedrick told the powers that be: “We need to get this game in.”
Randolph-Macon played all 15 seniors against York, including pitching both starting pitchers from the previous weekend on short rest.
“I told our guys in the beginning of the day that we were going to ride or die with our seniors,” Hedrick said.
The Yellow Jackets took a no-hitter into the ninth inning and cruised past York, 14-1, in what was the final game of the season.
“It was all around the best game of the season,” Hedrick told NBC Sports Washington.
In the midst of the impromptu Senior Day, Randolph-Macon Director of Athletics Jeff Burns walked into the dugout and let Hedrick know that all winter and spring championships had been cancelled. The season was over after the game ended.
“As crazy as it might sound, my mind went right then to [men’s basketball coach] Josh [Merkel] and his kids,” Hedrick said. “Those poor basketball kids. They were in it. Three games away from a national championship.”
Following the win, many of the baseball players remained on the field as night approached.
“Our players were stoic. They went out and they did what they needed to do,” Hedrick recalled. “Once the game ended, it was a release of emotions.”
On March 30, the NCAA ruled that all spring-season athletes will be granted an extra year of eligibility. Of the 15 seniors on the roster, Hedrick is expecting up to nine players to return for the 2021 season.
The Yellow Jackets baseball program has made the NCAA tournament five times since 2008 and reached the Division III College World Series in 2018. Could this year’s team have won a national championship?
Without hesitation Hedrick’s answer was an emphatic, “Yes.”
“We had the pieces in place to do it,” Hedrick explained. “We were getting excellent leadership from our seniors. We would’ve had to rely on some younger arms that might have hit a wall. The leadership from our seniors from a pitching standpoint would have prepared them. I think that this team could have made an interesting run in May.”
Randolph-Macon College’s first national championship might be around the corner, but 2020 will be remembered as the spring the Yellow Jackets were left knocking on the door.
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