CORVALLIS -- You may be here to read about Sunday afternoon’s college basketball game. It featured two of the best teams in the country. But I never really got beyond the scene at center court one hour before tip.

Oregon beat Oregon State 66-57.

That’s about all the basketball you’re getting out of me today. The game was played in a fog. Because a helicopter crashed in Southern California killing all nine souls on board. Kobe Bryant is among those dead. So is his 13-year old daughter, Gianna.

Said Oregon State senior Maddie Washington: “I know we’re supposed to be rivals, but when you see someone in pain, you just want to put your arms around them.”

Washington was the first to walk over to Oregon’s players during warm-ups. A few steps behind, teammate Aleah Goodman. Then, it happened. Everyone on both teams just set their basketballs down and walked toward mid-court together. They joined arms in a circle, heads down. The music playing on the public-address system inside Gill Coliseum shut off, too.

Then it went silent -- except for prayers.

A sign in the corner of the arena hung above it all.

It read: “We are family.”

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Kobe Bryant had grown close to Sabrina Ionescu. He communicated with Oregon’s star guard a few times a week through calls and texts. And he’d visited with Ionescu and her Ducks’ teammates at a game in December when they played at Long Beach State.

Said Ionescu’s father, Dan: “Kobe had become Sabrina’s mentor."

Now, he was gone.

Dan was outside Gill Coliseum with his wife and son waiting to get in when they heard the news. He dialed Oregon coach Kelly Graves, who was sitting courtside inside the arena, watching the early part of warm-ups. He asked Graves if he might scramble and take the cellular phones away from players.

Was it too late? Had they heard?

“I’m a dad,” Dan said. “I guess all I wanted to do there was to shield my daughter from the news. Maybe have her wait until after the game to find out. I don’t know. So hard."

Turns out, it was too late.

“It’s a different world,” Graves said. “The players always take a peek at their phones and what’s going on in the world before they take the court. And I wouldn’t have wanted them to hear about it on the court.”

I have three daughters. Can’t imagine how heartbroken I’d be for any of them in that situation. Don’t know what I’d do or say. But I know what Dan Ionescu did next. He got inside Gill Coliseum, then went straight to the visiting locker room to put his arms around his daughter and tell her how sorry he was.

“Kobe was the ultimate competitor," her dad told her before leaving. "The greatest honor you can give him is to go compete as he would today.”

It’s all he had.

It was more than enough.

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Megan Murphy Lopez is the director of basketball operations for the Oregon women’s basketball program. Her eyes were red and swollen on Sunday afternoon. She paced outside the UO locker room, walking alongside Sabrina Ionescu at one point as they moved from a room where the players dressed to one where the pre-game talk would begin.

She coordinates travel. She makes plans. But she’d say later as she left for home, “I’ve never had a day at work like this one, ever.”

Before Sunday’s victory, Oregon had never won in Corvallis under Kelly Graves, either. It’s why the Ducks decided to alter their stringent schedule after winning Friday’s home game against OSU in Eugene. After the game in the locker room, Graves told his players their weekend plans were changing.

There would be no early wake-up call on Sunday morning. No rushed bus ride to Corvallis. They’d do something they’ve never done before.

“We’re going to shake it up,” Graves announced to his players.

His team would sleep Saturday night 47 miles from their own campus, in a Corvallis hotel, as if this was a road game far away from home. They’d wake late, do a walk-through at the arena, and see if a changed approach might help cause a new result.

Graves had a plan.

One that was sailing along, right up until that helicopter crash.

Because after that news broke, the basketball operations team became a crisis-management team. Then, as the Ducks prepared to take the court, Murphy Lopez realized that they were going to walk up two flights of stairs and straight into a national television broadcast.

ESPNews was about to carry the game. A network sideline reporter and camera were waiting at the top of the stairs at the mouth of the opening to Ralph Miller court. Beyond that, there were two dozen cameras and media waiting mostly for Ionescu’s entrance, and perhaps, her reaction to the Kobe news.

Murphy Lopez saw the scene developing and called an audible.

Instead of coming up the staircase, the Ducks walked around the arena tunnel to the opposite corner of Gill Coliseum. Then, they came up the staircase and were on the court before the media scrum could figure it out. The ESPNews crew was left scratching its head.

♦♦♦

While Oregon and Oregon State played on Sunday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department released some details. There were nine people on board. The coroner’s office was doing its job. More information would be released as it became available.

Life gives us those hug-your-family moments.

So maybe you did.

After the Ducks-Beavers played on Sunday, the players found their way to the court. It’s a tradition. They pose for photographs and shake hands, especially with the young girls who come to see them play.

OSU’s Maddie Washington stood at mid-court, talking with her mother. Mikayla Pivec, the Beavers’ star guard, posed for photos with a line of young girls. Not far away, behind the Oregon bench, Dan Ionescu stood watching the most impressive and perfectly human scene I’ve ever witnessed in this building.

His daughter, Sabrina, posed for photos. Her eyes swollen. Her heart heavy. The best women’s college basketball player in America stood there, thanking little girls for coming to see her play.

So yeah, I’d love to tell you about the basketball some time. About how spirited Oregon State played in defeat. About how defensive-minded the Ducks were in the second half. I’d love to tell you about ball movement, and fundamentals, and a game played with heart.

Two of the greatest women’s teams in the country -- both from our state -- played a couple of games in 72 hours. The teams are so good. And so competitive. And so likable that it doesn’t feel real sometimes.

But nine people died on Sunday. Kobe and Gianna Bryant were among those killed. It’s sobering stuff. And I went home thinking about how one Civil War rival set the basketballs down and put its arms around the other.