MUNCIE, Ind. — Every one of them traveled to Cleveland ready to compete.
Kyle Mallers and Brachen Hazen, senior and redshirt junior forwards for Ball State basketball, respectively, watched the news break the night before their Mid-American Conference tournament opener that the NBA season was suspended amid coronavirus concerns. But they woke up March 12 without anything new from the MAC and began to prepare to play Kent State that evening.
Redshirt senior guard Josh Thompson remembers joking with assistant coach Matt Crenshaw about Thompson getting a couple dunks in during shootaround. A manager knocked on BSU head coach James Whitford’s door at 8:30 a.