Sterling Gibbs and his wife, Mary, had a baby shower on Sunday. A virtual baby shower, of course.

“We’re trying to make everything happen through these crazy times,” said Gibbs, the former UConn point guard.

Like so many couples who had big plans for the summer — weddings or, in the Gibbs’ case, the birth of their first child — their plans have been altered. Gibbs is supposed to be still playing for Koper Primorska, an Adriatic League First Division team based in Slovenia. But that league, like virtually every other in the world, was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

So, Sterling and Mary, back home in Bedminster, N.J., joined about 30 friends and family on a Tiger King-themed Zoom call for Sunday’s baby shower. Mary is due on June 2, but the couple is convinced the baby will arrive before then. Due to the pandemic, Sterling will likely be the only person allowed in the delivery room.

About a month ago, Gibbs wasn’t even sure he’d be able to see his first child. Ever.

Gibbs was overcome by fever, chills, a cough, chest pain and body aches that made him almost unable to move. He took ThraFlu, Tylenol, cranked the heat up in his home to about 90 degrees. Nothing worked.

“It sounds very dramatic,” he recalled, “but I literally felt like I was gonna die.”

Gibbs tested positive for COVID-19. He quarantined himself in his home for what turned out to be about 31/2 weeks.

“My body hurt,” he recalled. “It hurt to move, it hurt to walk to the bathroom. I felt like I had strep throat, and I had a terrible cough and chest pain. It hurt really bad whenever I coughed, and I would cough often. I couldn’t sleep because my body felt in pain.”

Even worse, he was isolated from his pregnant wife, who was staying with her parents about 25 minutes down the road.

“Mentally, it was tough, because my wife had been there with me when I didn’t realize I had it,” Gibbs recalled. “So, monitoring her was big for me … I feared her getting the same thing, and not being able to take any medicine, with her being pregnant and her immune system not being as strong.”

“I think that was the toughest part.”

AT THE EPICENTER

Sterling Gibbs spent just one season with UConn, but watching him weep, unable to speak at the podium following the Huskies’ second-round NCAA tourney loss to Kansas in March, 2016, you would have thought he’d spent a lifetime at the school.

“To be completely honest, the main reason was Kevin Ollie,” Gibbs said. “We’re still close. I talked to him (Sunday), he was at my wedding. K.O. was such a genuine guy. When he recruited me, he never promised me anything, it was more, ‘I can relate to you.’”

Since graduating, Gibbs has played in Hungary (spending one season as teammate with another former UConn grad transfer, Lasan Kromah), Russia, France and Greece. This was his first season in Slovenia, and it had been a good experience until the pandemic hit.

In February, Gibbs ran into former UConn women’s stars Breanna Stewart and Katie Lou Samuelson, while the two were in Europe playing for Team USA in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament. Gibbs had recently suffered a minor knee injury, and knowing European team doctors tended to try to rush players back onto the court, sought some help from Stewart.

She put him in touch with Team USA’s trainer, who checked him out and gave him a better course for recovery.

“That was big,” Gibbs recalled. “It actually worked out perfectly with the timing.”

About a month later, Gibbs had a few days off following a tournament. He and Mary, who were married last June and lived together in Serbia, took a quick jaunt down to Venice, then Milan. Two days later, Milan was shut down due to the coronavirus.

Koper Primorska played a couple of games with no fans in attendance. They were about to play their next game, about 10 minutes outside of Trieste, Italy — virtually the coronavirus epicenter — when the dominoes started falling: Rudy Gobert tested positive, the NBA postponed its season, the NCAA tournament was canceled.

The Adriatic League suspended its season, and Mary flew home. The following day, Gibbs was allowed to fly home, as well.

“We talk about how blessed we are, that we were able to get out of there so fast,” Gibbs said.

Back in New Jersey, Gibbs remembers starting to feel a little ill on a Tuesday, but thought it might just be his allergies and asthma acting up.

He woke up the next morning still not feeling great. Gibbs tried to do some of his virtual basketball training, but was in too much pain. That night, he woke up at 3 a.m. and it all hit him — body aches, chills, fever. The next day, he went to get tested.

Three days later, Gibbs learned he had tested positive for COVID-19. His severe symptoms persisted for another week or so while he remained isolated inside his home.

As he had feared, at one point, Mary came down with a cough and felt a little weak. Maybe it was pregnancy-related. Maybe not. Her doctor told her not to even bother getting tested, because she could expose herself to the virus simply by entering the testing tent. She quarantined for about 21/2 weeks.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, Gibbs started to feel like himself again. He wanted to be safe, though, and remained quarantined for an additional 10 days.

Mary is feeling fine, too. On Sunday, there was a virtual baby shower for the couple’s first child — a girl.

“I’m gonna have to call Geno (Auriemma) now,” Gibbs quipped.

The couple doesn’t have a name for their daughter yet — that’s up to Mary. But some time over the next several weeks, the potential future Husky will be born into a world very different from what it was just a few months earlier.

david.borges@hearstmediact.com