When Greg Gard awoke Thursday morning, he sensed that Wisconsin had already played its played its final game of the 2019-20 college basketball season.

He had watched closely Wednesday night as the NBA suspended its season indefinitely after Utah’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus and Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg battled illness on is team’s bench during the first day of the Big Ten men’s tournament in Indianapolis.

“I felt that was the direction everything was rolling,” Gard said by phone Thursday. “It was just a matter of when, not if.”

The end came suddenly Thursday as the Big Ten canceled the remainder of the league tournament, joining several other conferences concerned over the spread of the coronavirus.

Not long after the Big Ten’s announcement, the NCAA announced it had canceled both the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

The college basketball season was finished but incomplete.

Gard, his assistants and the players met at 1 p.m. in Madison to discuss the Big Ten’s decision, and Gard prepared the players for bad news from the NCAA.

“I had laid the groundwork that the wind was blowing in that direction,” he said. “It definitely wasn’t going to stay on a normal (schedule). The best-case scenario was that it would be postponed.

“What I tried to focus with them was this is bigger than basketball. And this group has been through bigger-than-basketball things.

“I think, for them, the silver lining in all of this was how we finished. Look what happened. Look what we have come through.

“This is a book. Sometime, somebody will write a book about this year. Where we started back in May and all the obstacles and hurdles and road blocks we had to overcome.

“And now you end it with this? The coronarivus that cancels the NCAA Tournament? You can’t make this stuff up.”

UW won its final eight regular-season games to earn a share of the Big Ten title with a 14-6 mark and finished 21-10 overall.

As they prepared for the Big Ten tournament this week, the UW players talked openly that their next goals were to win the title in Indianapolis and then retool for a run at the national title in Atlanta.

They were understandably disappointed to learn Thursday they had no chance to achieve those goals.

“But these are first-world problems, as Coach Tucker kept saying,” Gard said, referring to assistant Alando Tucker. “OK, they canceled a basketball tournament. There’s a lot more serious things going on in the world. And this group, with what they have been through, has a pretty good grasp of how the real world can be.”

Gard was referring to the Memorial Day weekend auto accident that left assistant Howard Moore with severe burns and claimed the lives of his wife and daughter.

Gard and his assistants were able on Monday to visit Moore, who remains in a long-term rehabilitation facility. They brought along the Big Ten trophy and a championship cap and T-shirt for Moore.

“It was surreal,” Gard said. “It’s one of those moments you’ll never forget. Seeing him grabbing that trophy and hanging onto it a little bit. … He could see his reflection in it. His dad was there. It was an emotional moment.”

So, too, was the final game UW played this season, a 60-56 victory at Indiana. That victory helped UW secure a share of the league title.

The locker room scenes – the players dumping water all over Gard and later surrounding him as he lauded them for all they had accomplished together – won’t soon fade.

“As I look back at this,” Gard said, “I was so happy we won that thing on the road and got the chance to celebrate privately with the people that were in the heat of the battle every day. It is great to celebrate with fans if you do it at home.

“But those guys in that locker room, they were the ones that were on the front lines every single day, through good days and bad days.

“It has been an amazing, amazing ride.”

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