Across the NCAA, seniors were left asking "What if?" in March when the coronavirus pandemic canceled the remaining winter and spring sporting events. Here are the stories that show the sudden, complicated, controversial and emotional ending athletes have been coming to grips with over the past few weeks.
They had just returned from a two-day vacation, an abridged spring break meant to offer a respite following the biggest victory of their lives. But even as NC State's women trudged back into Reynolds Coliseum on March 12, there was a feeling of unease, like the window they'd just smashed open as champions of the ACC basketball tournament had already slammed shut once more.
It's not as though Erika Cassell and her teammates had been glued to CNN. They'd heard about the novel coronavirus, about the potential for destruction it brought with it, and how that could wreak havoc with schedules, keep fans out of the stands, maybe even push tipoff of the NCAA tournament back a week or two. It's just that it all seemed a world away as the Wolfpack marched through the league's tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina, en route to the school's first title since 1991.
"I don't want to say it was a joke, but I don't think anyone was taking it to that level," Cassell said. "We were always on the court or practicing, so we weren't watching the news much."
The night before, the NBA put its season on hiatus. Players assembled that Thursday for a film session, reviewing some details of their 71-66 victory over Florida State before heading to the court. And that's when reality sunk in.
Word came down that the NCAA was putting a halt to practices. No one was quite sure what that meant long term, but NC State's coaches figured it best to call off the day's session. No one was ready to leave, so the women shot around a bit, ran through some drills. Every so often, they'd look over, see the staff muttering to one another, heads shaking in disbelief.
In an instant, it was over.
Coach Wes Moore found each player afterward, talked to them one-on-one, breaking the news. The tournament was canceled. The season was done. What comes next? No one knew. It was uncharted waters.
"I still feel that sense of, I didn't say goodbye to coaches, I didn't clean out my locker," said Cassell, one of five scholarship seniors on the team. "Everything's sort of frozen in time now."
For Cassell, the sudden end to a season was frustratingly familiar. So, too, for her teammates Grace Hunter and Kaila Ealey. All three entered their junior seasons in 2018 as NC State starters, core members of an emerging power, fresh off a trip to the Sweet 16. All three ended that season with a knee injury -- Ealey in October, before playing in a single game; Hunter on Jan. 3, 2019, against Duke; Cassell a month later vs. Florida State.
Truth is, none of them was quite ready to come back when the 2019-20 season tipped off. Ealey was furthest along, but she had missed so much time. Hunter's legs weren't in it, still wobbly and unsure. Cassell probably should've taken a redshirt, she said. The coaches suggested it, but she'd come in with this group, grown close with all the women, particularly roommate Aislinn Konig, and she wanted to leave with them, too.
"It was hard to come back," Cassell said. "It was full of lots of ups and downs, but I knew we had a chance to be really good, so that's why I didn't redshirt."
Cassell, Hunter and Ealey were all starters when they got hurt, too. When they returned, an influx of younger talent was ascendant. All were relegated to bench duty, thrust into the job of role players and mentors as they rehabbed creaky knees and offered what they could to push the team a little further down the road.
Those roles were, in some ways, well-established before this season. There's Ealey, the pragmatist, always looking to the future, helping her girls plan ahead. There's Hunter, the comedian. She made it impossible not to laugh, to enjoy the ride. There's Cassell, the nurturer. She's the team mom, she said. There's no stat sheet for those things, Konig said, but as the Wolfpack reached heights not seen in Raleigh for 30 years, the impact was enormous.
"Those three are really at the heart of what this team is about," Konig said. "I've never seen such commitment to a team as those three have given. Their dedication to team and goals and accepting a role that maybe they weren't happy about, they're the first ones to cheer, the most excited, the hardest working. They're the essence of the team as a whole."
Yeah, there are regrets. Hunter said she wishes she'd been at full strength earlier, that she was just hitting her stride. Cassell thinks of all the time she put in, alone in a training room or a classroom last summer, and wishes she could've written a little different ending. Hunter, a transfer from Charlotte, never actually got to play in an NCAA tournament game. A year ago, she was hurt. Then ... the virus.
And yet, who knows what an NCAA tournament might've held? Sure, they all believe they had a chance to go far, to win it all. But maybe it goes differently. Maybe there would've been a jolting end there, too, long before they were ready. They'd never be quite ready.
Instead, they're left with this: a final game to win an ACC title. The three of them on the bench as confetti bursts from the rafters. A trophy and tears of joy and a locker room celebration that made every rehab session worth the pain.
"I can't complain about how the season ended," Hunter said. "I'm just thankful. My last moments with the team we were all crying and excited because the work paid off."
After the coaching staff canceled that March 12 practice, no one was ready to leave, so they played a pickup game for another hour or so.
The Hollywood ending would've seen these three seniors, injuries be damned, playing crucial minutes through six games to win a national title. But most players don't get the Hollywood ending.
Instead, there was a certain arthouse allure to this impromptu conclusion -- just the women, going at it one last time on their home court, nothing left to play for and no one ready to walk away.
"That last moment was amazing," Hunter said. "Just all of us laughing with each other, playing free basketball without Coach Moore telling us what to do. It was just us playing and laughing. If it had to end somewhere, that was a good way."
Eventually, the other women all filtered out of the gym, packed a bag, went their own way. Konig was the last to leave. She sat alone in the bleachers, trying to process the finality of it all.
"It was like being out of your body and watching it all happen," she said.
Then she, too, walked out of the arena for the last time as a player.
And maybe that's a sad ending. Cassell knows there will be days -- next week, next year, 20 years from now -- when she wonders what might've been. But she thinks, too, that she'll be back at Reynolds Coliseum one day, and when that happens, she won't be thinking about the games she didn't play.
Back when she first came to NC State, Moore would talk endlessly about winning an ACC championship. He'd point up to the rafters, tell his team to imagine a banner hanging in celebration of a conference championship it had yet to win.
"I joked during the season that when we have our 10-year reunion for the ACC championship, I'm hoping I can hobble out there with a cane and be a part of it with them," Moore said.
That's what sticks with Cassell, she said. Maybe there was more ahead, some chapter left unfinished. But she doesn't need that to feel fulfilled. There will be a banner hanging in the rafters, and that will be a fitting tribute to all they'd been through together.
That, she said, is a pretty good ending.
"We'll look up, and we'll see '2020 ACC champs,'" Cassell said. "We did that. I don't regret anything."