Tayler Mattos wasn’t supposed to be driving through Vermont last weekend en route to see his mother.
If all had gone as planned, he and his teammates on the Bowling Green State University men’s basketball team would have been in the middle of the NCAA Tournament, March Madness.
But dreams of being a part of the CBS network’s One Shining Moment montage on championship game night will have to wait at least another year.
Mattos is just one of many athletes who saw seasons came to a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Falcons never took the floor at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland to play a quarterfinal game in the Mid-American Conference Tournament, which was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on March 12.
“It’s pretty sad, not going to lie,” said Mattos, who led Kearsarge to a 2017 NHIAA Division III title. “You work all year for those three days in Cleveland. And then they say you can’t play.”
The sophomore center from New London said he could tell something was off on game day.
The morning shootaround went on without a hitch, but toward the end of breakfast the Bowling Green athletic director asked the team if they felt comfortable playing that evening.
The night before was when the NBA became the first major North American professional league to suspend play. Over a week before at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, Rudy Gobert, the first NBA player with COVID-19, played the Cleveland Cavaliers, heightening the uncertainty around safety.
“After we talked with the athletic director and agreed we were fine, then we had to get our temperatures taken,” Mattos said of that day. “And everyone was fine. So I was like, let’s go, we can play. Then, about 1 p.m., we had a team meeting. Normal meeting but then coach told us that the MAC commissioner actually canceled the tournament.”
The announcement came from commissioner Jon Steinbrecher in a press conference at the arena.
At the same time as the MAC’s decision, conferences around the country were shuttering tournaments, and days later, the NCAA Tournament would be called off. Having lots of company didn’t take away any of the sting for Mattos.
Coming out of Kearsarge, the 6-foot-11 post player had offers from Hartford, Albany, Bryant and Boston University. But instead of doing a year of post grad, as many others do, Mattos took what some see as the tougher route and went directly to college.
After his first season saw him play in 18 games, Mattos found his groove in his sophomore year as he started in all but one game, averaging 5.3 points and 5.1 rebounds a game.
After losing in last season’s championship game to Buffalo, which was a Top 25 ranked team, Mattos and Bowling Green were looking to earn the Falcons a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1968.
Bowling Green entered the Mid-American Conference tournament as the No. 2 seed after compiling a 21-10 record in the regular season and going 12-6 in conference play.
“I feel for him, his teammates and all the collegiate student-athletes who dream about playing in March Madness as a kid growing up in a small community,” said Nate Camp, who coached Mattos at Kearsarge. “It’s not fair to anyone, but knowing Tayler, I’m confident he understands the situation, but that doesn’t make up for all his hard work and desire to be great on the biggest stage.”
Mattos really hasn’t had time to comprehend what’s transpired in the last two weeks.
He had to say his goodbyes to his senior teammates, pack up his locker and pick up his life in northwest Ohio and move it back to New England as BGSU moved to online learning for the rest of the semester.
Mattos isn’t quite certain what the next few weeks will look like.
Instead of getting in the gym with assistant coaches for offseason workouts and going to classes, he will have to focus on his academics from afar and piece together his own offseason program.
He’s just grateful that he has two years left with the Falcons. The most painful experience of this process, he said, was knowing the seniors won’t have a chance to win a MAC title.
“Our goal every year is to just set yourself up in a strong position for those three days in Cleveland,” Mattos said. “I’m not going to take those for granted moving forward.”