The further emptying, and reality

Look, I don't know how bad this gets. Neither do you. Neither does the wise guy a few seats down at your local watering hole, scoffing that the whole thing is just Media Hype, and that all you've gotta do is wash your hands and cough into your elbow and all will be well.

Yeah, well. Italy thought so, too.

Read that. Read it again. Maybe reality will come knocking, finally.

Reality is Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz being the wise guy a few seats down the bar the other night, touching every mic on the postgame podium. Forty-eight hours later, he's got the very thing he was mocking, and now the NBA has suspended its season.

Reality is all those billionaire owners, who like every billionaire never met a dime they wouldn't stoop to pick up off the sidewalk, going along with this without a peep. Even though it's going to cost them a whole pile of dimes.

Reality is Our Only Available Impeached President, who thought he could run the whole show with amateur hacks and craven toadies, looking like a poleaxed steer as he announced a 30-day ban on travel from Europe. Just a few days ago he was boasting, from the depths of his great medical knowledge, that COVID-19 cases in the U.S. would be down to zero by the weekend. Now maybe even he gets that he can't soft-soap this to protect his corrupt presidency, that COVID-19 doesn't give a damn about his re-election campaign.

Reality?

Reality is the NCAA Tournament, that massive cashbox of "amateur" collegiate athletics, playing out now in empty arenas. It's every conference tournament doing the same thing. It's the Ivy League cancelling its tournament altogether.

(And, yes, that is the reverse lottery ticket of all time for the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, which is scheduled to play host to both the NCAA Division III men's basketball semifinals and -- after years of trying -- an NCAA Division I women's regional in the coming weeks. Now they'll throw their long-awaited party, and no one will be there.)

In any case ... none of this is ridiculous. It is not insane. It is not media-generated panic or the Democrats or however else the scoffers and conspiracy kooks choose to explain it. It is simple common sense, like coming in out of the rain or heading for the basement when the sky outside turns black and wild.

Reality?

Reality is having to live in the basement for awhile, maybe. It's One Shining Moment going dark entirely the first time a player or coach or student manager tests positive for COVID-19.

That could happen. That probably will happen. And you can call that ridiculous or insane or whatever  you want.

But you'll be a damn fool if you do.

UPDATE: It did happen. All conference tournaments, and the NCAA basketball tournaments, have been cancelled. as of this afternoon. March now has an immense yawning hole in it.

The upside: No March Madness means you won't get burned by a 13-over-a-4, a 14-over-a-3 or a 15-over-a-2 in 2020. Also, no more speculating about whether or not Indiana or Purdue will get into the Big Show. So there's that.