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University of Illinois Athletics Press Conference
March 13, 2020 | State Farm Center Media Room

Director of Athletics Josh Whitman and men's basketball coach Brad Underwood talk about the cancellations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Thanks, everybody, for being here.  Interesting times.  What's funny is I was thinking about all that's gone down these last couple days.  My dad's favorite song is American Pie by Don McLean, and yesterday it felt a little bit like the day the music died.  It was a really hard day for I think all of us involved in college athletics.  I put out the statement yesterday, but it's hard, I think, for people to recognize all that goes into the preparation and these few opportunities for our student-athletes to go out and compete to play the games and the sports that they love.  There's so much energy, so much effort from the student-athletes, from the coaches, from the support staff.  Obviously this is what our entire operation is about is providing these moments that are very scarce, and when I meet with the freshmen at the beginning of every year, I tell them that this thing is fleeting, that it passes in the blink of an eye, and we encourage them to enjoy it, to really take the time to pause and reflect and recognize the opportunities that they're having as they come.  

            Yesterday we found ourselves in a position where we, for a certain segment of our student-athletes, took a significant piece of that window away.  

            You know, occasionally, every once in a while, those of us involved in this every day, we spend a big part of our life treating these contests as the most important thing that we have, and we put a lot of energy and a lot of effort into building competitive successful programs.  But every once-in-a-while something happens that helps to bring everything into focus, and we've had a few of those events happen here over the last several months.  We had the passing of my friend Robert Archibald.  Of course, we had the passing of our NBA legend Kobe Bryant, and then certainly as this coronavirus situation has continued to develop, it can't help but bring everything into focus in terms of where sports fits into the bigger picture.  

            At the same time, I think that it's also been a really empowering reminder of the reach and breadth of sports and of the great service that I think we provide to society, and it's helped to remind people about the power of relationships, about the power of these games to bring people together, to create sense of community, and all of a sudden when the lights go off and the entire thing goes dark, there's this incredible sense of void and loss that we have to work through.  

            I mentioned in my statement yesterday was the hardest day.  I've never had a day like yesterday.  Things happened incredibly fast, and they're not finished happening.  I think that's evident, that things are very fluid.  They continue to evolve on a national level, on a regional level, and certainly here on our campus, as well.  

            But the communication to the student-athletes last night, we had a teleconference with them where we sent an email to them in the afternoon just on the heels of the announcement from the Big Ten.  And then we had a teleconference with them and any parents who wanted to participate last evening.  We'll have another one most likely early next week.  And part of the message is, this is an evolving situation, so we don't pretend to have all the answers.  We work really hard not to act like we have answers to questions when we don't.  But the message to them really was just one of appreciation, support, empathy.  Again, I have great understanding of what has gone into preparing for these opportunities, and to suddenly, for reasons out of their control, have the opportunities taken away is -- the word I used yesterday is true, it's heartbreaking.  And so we want to be there for them as they work through this and their own emotions, and we will continue to provide that support.  

            So, to just kind of outline what has happened, I think that's fairly evident at this point, but just to be sure we're all on the same page.  At this point there will be no competitions for the remainder of the year for any of our teams, conference, non-conference, home, away.  There will be no practices for our teams for the remainder of the year.  There will be no organized team activities.  And these were decisions that we made yesterday in advance of the Big Ten's announcement this morning relative to organized team activities.  

            I think what's important to us is that, again, this is bigger than sports.  And so as our University continues to navigate this situation, to put policies in place, we want to be sure that our student-athletes are in a position to comply with those policies, to follow the directives that are coming to our entire student body without concern for their status as a student-athlete, that we're not putting in place a situation where they have to choose between what the University is telling them to do and what they're being asked to do by our athletic program or by our coaching staff.  And so we want to be sure that they have a clear path to make good choices for their own health, for the health of their families and our campus that aren't affected by what they feel are obligations to the athletic department.  And so, we've tried to remove any of those barriers, and again, provide them with that clear choice.  

            What is an organized team activity?  Obviously, something that people will ask.  I think from my perspective it's planned workouts, it's organized activities, it's scheduled lifting.  And you know, we're not -- again, we don't want to create any sense of compelling them to be in a certain place at a certain time if, in fact, that is going to contradict the directives that are coming from the University.  

            We also, as I think people saw, the Big Ten yesterday placed a prohibition on in-person on and off campus recruiting activities.  I think that makes a tremendous amount of sense.  We'll also be making some announcements probably later today with regard to public use of some of our facilities, particularly the Atkins Tennis Center and the Armory.  Again, in light of everything that's going on, we think it's best to err on the side of caution, and we'll have more information on that forthcoming. 

            We will have a number of our student-athletes who will remain here on campus.  We have a certain segment of them who have a variety of reasons to do so.  Certain student-athletes may be recovering from a surgery, may be in the midst of rehabilitation, they need a higher attention in terms of athletic training and sports medicine.  We'll make arrangements for them to be here.  

            Certain student-athletes, some of our international student-athletes, others of our student-athletes who may come from different backgrounds, different places, it may make more sense for them to be here than to be at home, and we're working through some of those student-athletes might be.  Some of our student-athletes may benefit from more in-person and hands-on academic support, and so we'll be sure that they have the opportunity to be here, as well.  

            For those student-athletes who are here, we will continue to provide access to our support services.  So, we still will have weight rooms available, we'll still have our athletic training room available, we'll have our academic services center available, our varsity room.  

            Again, all these things are subject to change, depending on how things continue to develop at the campus level.  

            But those services will be scaled back.  Hours will be limited.  We'll probably try and condense our facilities down.  Instead of operating six weight rooms, we may operate two so that we can focus our resources on making sure that those spaces remain sanitary, clean.  We're able to keep our personnel aligned with the spaces that we do have available for use.  

            And I think most importantly for me in the near term is making sure that for those student-athletes who yesterday had their opportunities curtailed that we provide an outlet, that we provide services and support.  Again, I think for people who haven't been in the arena, so to speak, understanding the emotion that goes with these decisions and suddenly having something so abruptly taken away after you've spent literally the bulk of your life trying to get to that place is difficult.  And so we want to be sure that whether it's our coaches, our sports medicine professionals, our mental health professionals, our administrative staff, that we are there and available to answer questions and help the young men and women in our program grapple with this new reality as we work through the end of the spring.  

            But these are hard decisions, but it's also an interesting time.  It's an unprecedented time.  And so we need to be in a position to exercise some agility.  And as I said, I think yesterday in the statement, make sure that we return to our core values.  

            We talk all the time about how our student-athletes, their health and well-being is number one on that list.  We don't often get pushed to make a decision that sometimes can be at odds with that.  But in this case, we did, and we needed to be sure that we came out on the right side of that question.  

            I'll turn it over to Coach and then we're happy to answer any questions.  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Well, I think first of all, a big thanks goes out to the Big Ten leadership, to Josh, the leadership of our University, in what has been an unprecedented turn of events.  And I think we all understand that this is bigger than a tournament, a Big Ten Tournament and an NCAA Tournament.  And it actually is a very valuable lesson for all of our student-athletes in what is the game of life, that it is pretty significant and how abrupt it can end.  

            We were practicing yesterday in Hinkle Fieldhouse, and we were told -- both teams were on the floor warming up, and we knew that there were not going to be fans, and yet it was -- there was a tremendous sense of excitement.  20, 30 minutes into that, we found out that that was not going to happen.  

            We finished practice, showered, came home, and then had probably one of the more difficult conversations I've ever had to have with the team.  Nothing is easy in those moments.  You feel for Kipper (Nichols), Tyler (Underwood), Sammy (Oladimeji), Andres Feliz.  We were an NCAA Tournament team, and there was no doubt about that.  You can put an asterisk by it.  You can put whatever you want.  I think it's the first time since 1938 there won't be a national champion.  

            I said it after the last game here, my gratitude for that group of guys will always be remembered.  I made a comment to Josh yesterday that in all my years and however many more that I have in me, this team will -- I will always remember.  And it won't be because we didn't play in the NCAA Tournament and the NCAA Tournament didn't happen.  It'll be because of all the fond memories and all the hard work and all the character and all of the wonderful adjectives that go with a team.  

            I had fun this year.  I had a blast coaching this team.  When you get to enjoy those moments, to have it end abruptly and for something that is so big, it is hard.  It is hard.  It's crushing.  It's devastating.  I had a sick feeling the night before.  I kind of had an idea of where it was going.  It's just hard to put that in the right perspective.  

            This team achieved a lot.  I'm extremely proud.  We've got Illinois back in the NCAA Tournament.  We've got Illinois back on the national stage.  And you know, the event is not going to happen.  And I feel for those kids.  Our coaching staff has done an incredible job, and we'll be there.  We'll be back there, but those four guys won't.  And that's what's so disappointing, to walk on that court and get that experience.  

            But circumstances are what they are, and we'll continue to grow this program and keep working.  And in the meantime, I'm going to have nothing but incredibly fond memories of this season, and I can't wait to just sit back and really dig in to all the positives that have happened in this season.  

            To that, I'll open it up.  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Before we do questions, I'll piggyback on one thing that Coach said.  I would be remiss if I didn't also mention how fortunate I think we all feel to be involved with the leadership that we have, whether we're talking about the campus, the conference, the NCAA, and how grateful I am to our coaching staff.  I met yesterday with our entire coaching staff, and then our group of staff members over in DIA, as well.  We've had sort of nonstop meetings here over the last 36 hours as we think about the implications of this decision for our entire operation, but in particular for our student-athletes.  And we have a really talented, dedicated group that has put their hearts out here over the last couple days, and really grateful to them for the long hours and the good work that they're doing.   

Q. Josh, Kevin Warren said yesterday that he met with all 14 athletic directors about what to do regarding the tournament.  What were those meetings like, and what was the feeling when he was meeting with you guys?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Yeah, we've had a series of meetings.  We had a pre-planned meeting over in Indianapolis on Wednesday afternoon starting, I think at 1:00 Eastern time, and we arrived with a certain agenda, and I don't know that we really even got into the agenda at all.  The virus conversation, of course, dominated the day.  And then since then we've had a series of conference calls.  We had another one this morning.  I expect actually we're going to have daily conference calls here for the next week or 10 days as we continue to watch this unfold and react accordingly.  

            I'm unbelievably impressed with Kevin's leadership, when you talk about getting thrown into the fire.  All of a sudden here he is just a couple months on the job, and we're dealing with something that none of us have ever seen in our lifetime.  I appreciate his open mind and I appreciate his interest in gathering feedback and building consensus, and I'm really proud to be a member of this conference and to be associated with the other athletic directors, the faculty representatives, our senior women administrators, everybody has had a voice in this, our presidents and chancellors. 

            I think as much as any league in the country, I think we have a really strong sense of identity and a good comfort level with who we are, and we allow that to drive these hard decisions, and it's been a very collaborative process, and again, been incredibly impressed with everybody who's had a voice in it.           

Q. Obviously one of the issues that has arisen is what to do with the seniors that have had their spring seasons taken away, the winter sports, as well.  Would this institution advocate for them to apply for a waiver to have their season back, or a redshirt situation, have you thought about that?  Have you had meetings about those situations?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  We've just started to think through some of those things.  It's not as straightforward as it might first seem.  I think that -- I fully expect that there will be a lot of amendments, waivers that will stem from these events.  I think that certainly the opportunity to come back in a lot of ways is a no-brainer for student-athletes who want to take advantage of that opportunity.  

            But you're also going to have to look at scholarship limits, you're going to have to look at roster sizes because most of those spots have been given to somebody for next year, and so you may have to grow the scholarship support for a year while we work through the transition.  Not to mention things that you probably won't be able to work through as much, but if an incoming baseball player thought that the stud center fielder in front of them was going to graduate and move on and that spot was going to be there for them to try and compete for, and all of a sudden that stud center fielder is coming back, that changes that internal dynamic, that one is probably not something that we can deal with legislatively.  

            I do expect that we will have a seat at the table as some of those conversations continue to grow here in the coming weeks.      

Q. Josh, you mentioned Kevin's leadership through this.  How do you approach this unprecedented event?  What do you see as your role as a leader through this?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Well, I don't know that it's any different than my role as a leader in any other capacity.  I think that we try to be in a lot of ways kind of the calm eye in the center of the storm.  I think that people are going to look to me and to our leadership team with NDIA for guidance, for how to react to circumstances like this.  I think there are certainly elements to this that are unprecedented.  The speed at which things have changed has been really hard to fathom, and it seems like we get one sense of what's happening, and by the time we put a communication plan together around that, then it's changed again.  

            But just try to get the right people in the room, ask the right questions and push people to think proactively about some of the implications of these decisions.  And above all, try and almost triage the questions and think about, okay, what needs urgent attention, what can we push off until tomorrow, what can we push off until next week, because everybody has got their own little pocket in this, and so somebody in the business office is going to wonder, well, what happens to the bus contracts, what happens to the hotel contracts.  In their world that seems really urgent, but in the grander picture, we've got to focus on the student-athletes first.  We've got to get that -- and then we're going to sort of move out from that starting point, and so you just try and create a priority list and work through some of those questions, and we've got, as I said, a big group across the way that's put in a lot of time and attention trying to get that list in the right place and start to develop some of those answers.   

Q. Maybe before this week, how much in the department were you talking about coronavirus and what were those conversations like?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Yeah, I think that it's become a fairly significant topic of conversation over the last, I'd say, three weeks.  We'd started to really pay attention as it was starting to gain more national attention, and as the university started to focus more and more on it, and so we were starting to think through some contingency plans.  Certainly, we had done a lot of the things that you would expect in terms of encouraging our student-athletes to be mindful of physical contact and their cleanliness habits and the like.  

            But obviously it's ratcheted up fairly significantly here over the last week in particular.  I don't know that any of us anticipated that it would get to this place, but once it started to move this direction, I felt like as I left the meetings in Indianapolis on Wednesday, I felt like this was almost the inevitable conclusion of where it might go.       

Q. We think of Selection Sunday as part of the experience.  You said you guys were an NCAA Tournament team.  There are other teams in the Big Ten – Penn State and Rutgers – just getting back for the first time in a long time.  Do you think there would be value still to hear your name called?  Would that be something that would mean something to you guys even though there's not going to be a tournament?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Well, there's not going to be a selection show.  You know, it's one of the great, great, great emotions that take place is hearing your name called, and that sense of accomplishment that you have.  I don't think there was any doubt -- we weren't a bubble team.  We were in.  I think that all the talk for us was about can we move up a line, can we move up two lines, what happens, that's what the Big Ten Tournament, how it was going to impact us. 

            I'm disappointed for our guys that they don't get to hear their name.  That's pretty special.  It's one of the great memories.  

            But I also understand the ramifications of automatic qualifiers and who do you pick and how difficult that could be.  

            We'll wait until next year.           

Q. Josh, when you think back on this past year of Illinois athletics, how do you put it all into context?  What has this past year meant to Illinois athletics as a whole?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  It's been the year that we needed it to be.  I think that this was the year, as I've said in different settings, where when we got here in early 2016, if you'd said, okay, when do you expect to turn the corner, I would have circled 2019, 2020, and I feel like we've been able to do that.  And again, it's differentiating emotions.  It's not being satisfied but being happy.  

            I think that we're in a good place.  This was a really important step in the right direction, particularly in the sports of football, men's basketball.  I think our fans are excited.  I think our community is excited.  I know our student-athletes are excited.  We talk all the time about winners wanting to be around other winners, and you're feeling the culture within the athletic program evolve and change, and there's now an expectation that I think is being passed around amongst the student-athletes, amongst the coaches.  There's positive peer pressure, hey, look what we're doing, what are you doing.  And I think that's a really good place for us to be.  

            Now the challenge for us is to take this momentum and capitalize on it and use it as a springboard to what I think can be a really special year next year and beyond, and so pleased but never satisfied, but happy with where we are and looking forward to what's to come.  

Q. You mentioned that this is toughest for the seniors.  What have you seen them -- how have you seen them react to this?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Oh, there was -- it was a lot of raw, raw, raw emotion.  You know, there were more hugs, more tears from coaching staff, players.  People forget we invest a lot.  We invest a lot of ourselves in each of these young people, and we want for them to have special moments and memories that last a lifetime.  That's what part of the beauty of athletics is, is that you create lifetime opportunities and lifetime memories and relationships.  

            Yeah, that was a challenge yesterday.  You know, there wasn't a dry eye in there, and you expect that.  That's when you know people are invested and they're bought into everything that we're doing.  I couldn't be prouder of that group of guys, and yet my heart aches for them.  

Q. Josh, obviously tough for those basketball seniors that don't get their postseason.  For the baseball and softball team, have you gotten a chance to maybe address those seniors that saw their season end before it really started?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Just in the context of the overall student-athlete communications.  We haven't had a chance to sit down with individual teams yet, but I anticipate that we will have that opportunity as the weeks go on here.  We'll see, again, as the university issues its various directives what those opportunities look like, whether they're in person or they're virtual, but again, we have great understanding and empathy for what this means for a lot of our seniors, and we want to be sure that we're looking at -- and we've tasked some of our group across the street with thinking about ways, and they're not going to be great, we recognize they're going to be poor substitutes, but are there ways that we can soften the blow a bit for our seniors in particular in terms of things that they're specifically missing, Senior Day in their respective sports.  Some of them may have had the opportunity to be four-time letter winners, people who are looking to compete for this last time, graduation, we don't know what's going to happen around commencement.  We always do a breakfast for graduating student-athletes that morning, things like that, end of the season banquets where the seniors are honored.  How can we handle and approach those things that are being foregone and create maybe some different but some sort of an experience or something that at least helps to make a little bit of a lemonade out of a lemon.  

Q. Josh, as rapidly as this all develops in a negative way, if things were unexpectedly to go in a positive direction, has there been any talk of a door open at all to any kind of reversal, or is this all final?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Well, if we've learned anything over the last 24 hours, I think it's that this entire situation is fluid, and as we've managed through it, we've done so with the information that we have available at any given moment.  I think that we anticipate that the situation will not be better to the point that we would be in a position to reengage in certain activities. Certainly, the competition thing is final; that's not going to get changed.  We recognize that there's a lot that goes into the planning and preparation for the travel and the officials and the event staff and all the other things that go into hosting games or traveling to participating games.  Whether there would be an opportunity to revisit the practice conversation or the organized team activity conversation, sure.  We're never going to say never.  But again, just based on the information that I have in my admittedly relatively limited understanding of what's happening in the world around us, I don't think, given that we're sitting here in the middle of March and the semester ends in roughly six weeks, I don't know that we'll see significant change during that window.  

            And we'd be having, I think, a very different conversation if this was all happening in September.  But the reality is we're so close to the end of the school year already that in my mind it made sense to go ahead and take the full bite.      

Q. Brad, Mark Few was on ESPN Live when they canceled the tournament.  His first words were disappointed.  He thought a postponement might have been better.  What were your thoughts, and what camp were you in on that?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Yeah, I actually spoke with Mark.  I think we were all trying to avoid finality, and cancel is final, yet as Josh just mentioned, I think when you get so close to the end of the school year, you get so many other factors involved.  It was way above just a basketball tournament.  

            You know, you've got travel restrictions, you've got so many other things that go on.  I think you've got logistical plans.  I would have loved to have seen it played, but I also am smart enough to understand that there were complications well beyond the realm of what is normal in terms of just postponing something and rescheduling it.  There was a tremendous amount of complications to that.  

            You know, you're disappointed that it is final, it's over, we're not going to play it, but you fully understand the path with which it had to be that way.       

Q. Coach, obviously your son was on the team.  You and Tyler have gone through life together, basketball together.  What emotions did you feel knowing that your career with your son, at least playing-wise, was over in a way that probably nobody foresaw?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Yeah, it's really hard.  It's really hard.  I couldn't be happier for him, for his last game to be a start, for him to play well, to contribute.  Those are -- probably make it all worthwhile.  He was a part of an NCAA Tournament team at Steven F., he was a part of an NCAA Tournament team at Oklahoma State.  He was a part of an NCAA Tournament team at Illinois.  He never got to step on the court with that, but man, there's a lot to be really, really proud of, and not as a coach, as a father.  Shoot, that's -- I'm blessed.            

Q. Josh, I know you're working through the wellness part of this, but financially I know there's so much hits going across.  How does this impact you guys?  Do you know yet?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  We don't know yet.  I think I talked about prioritizing questions.  We know that's a big question that we know will need to be answered, but it's not one that we've been able to dive deeply into yet.  Certainly, there will be financial implications of these decisions, but in terms of the magnitude and scale, I don't have a good sense yet.   

Q. Brad, where did you kind of draw the ability to craft the right message with those guys and just that process for you to have that conversation with them?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Well, I thought on the drive home, and a lot of us coaches were talking around the country, and we kind of had an idea of what it was, and again, I think you just kind of pause for a moment, and you realize the abruptness of it, but you realize the raw emotion that's going to be there and how bad you feel, yet in Illini basketball, there was a lot to be proud of, and I wanted to make sure that they understood what they had done.  They brought us back to national prominence.  They brought us back to the NCAA Tournament.  They achieved great things.  We had a double bye.  We were in competition the last week for the conference championship, the conference title.  We were in a position to win a National Championship.  To be quite honest, I think in a year there was no clear-cut favorite.  We had a chance.  

            I wanted them to experience that.  The Illini Nation is back better than ever, and the sellouts, the crowds, and I want them to remember those things, and not just the sadness and the emptiness that comes from not playing, but the positives of what happened. 

            You know, that was a -- that's why it was a tough meeting, because you did mix so many emotions.  But I'll be forever grateful, man.  That group is always going to live as one of the teams that accomplished so much and deserves so much credit.  I wanted them to know that.            

Q. Josh, how do you encourage all of your teams to maintain strength and conditioning while also saying that lifting is one of the things that you have to cancel as an official matter, and will your trainers be available and other sports staff?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Yeah, I think that -- one, I don't think we have to encourage it.  For our student-athletes, the thing that I love about all of them is that their level of commitment and dedication is really without peer.  So their commitment to their on-going development and physical improvement doesn't need me to incentivize that.  They're doing that on their own, and as I said, we'll continue to make facilities available to them to do that.  

            We will -- one of our meetings this morning, our strength and conditioning staff will be developing plans to be sure that we're able to continue to provide guidance and instruction to our student-athletes even remotely so that they have access to a plan so that they're not just going into the weight room and doing their own thing, that we're giving them a sense of direction and guidance in terms of how their workouts should be held and what they're trying to accomplish.  

            So again, it's all new ground here, but I feel good that our student-athletes continue to be as motivated as they've ever been and we'll continue to provide as many resources as we ever have, although the delivery of those resources might be a little different than what we've seen in the past.     

Q. Brad, how will you navigate recruiting?  Do you even know at this point?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  No, I think it's something, in fact, we were talking about this morning.  I mean, we're all in the same boat, and yet the transfer portal is filling up probably as we speak.  You can't bring those young people on campus.  Everything will probably be done a little more now over the phone.  You know, I don't know -- I think it's to be determined yet if you can convince a kid to come by a phone call.  

            But I think, again, it's a very fluid situation that we'll see how universities, how conferences choose to move forward.  The NABC has banned all recruiting, so fortunately I've got a great, great staff, and we are in a very, very nice position to have a majority of our recruiting needs met.  But yeah, we'll stay monitoring the portal, monitoring phone calls the best we can.  Mail-outs become probably a little bit more prominent and stuff that we can send out through graphics and other things.  But we'll stay as fluid as we can in that process.  

            We've had a lot of -- 21 kids in unofficially, some officially.  That's been a very big positive as they got to see the State Farm Center, they got to see some games, so being able to get those kids in here, we don't know what will happen with spring recruiting.  We're being told that a lot of the circuits could possibly not happen.  So we're still really up in the air as to what recruiting is going to look like here as we move forward.   

Q. Brad, I suppose this is kind of a follow-up to that question, but do you have ideas as a staff on how to keep maybe connected with the team and the players still engaged as you still move forward even if there's not organized activities?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Yeah, and I think the one thing that we'll continue to monitor that.  I think the one thing that's needed for us is a break.  And I say that, we've been going since June 6th.  We didn't have a break with August, with the trip to Italy.  Stepping away from -- and letting the body recover and the mind heal, so to speak, will be a pretty good thing.  

            We had it planned anyway that we were going to take several weeks away from it, so we've got a little bit of time here how we'll get it, and as Josh mentioned, we've got highly motivated athletes who are going to continue to work and improve their games and so on and so forth, through Fletch, and we'll sit down and monitor those situations.  We'll stay up with the university policy and how if any of those things change.  

            But a break is needed for us, and we're going to utilize that the best way we can.      

Q. Josh, have there been any signs of sickness or any testing or need to be testing in the department?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  We haven't had anything, no.     

Q. Josh, there's been a lot of communication about -- the communication between the leadership, whether it's the NCAA office to the school presidents to the college athletic departments, how do you feel about how this was handled?  I know it's unprecedented, but is that an appropriate conversation to have about how do we improve the communication?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  I think when it's over, there's a chance to go back and reflect on how everything was handled and learned from, like you said, a situation that none of us have ever encountered before.  I think we're still very much in it, and so doing a look under the hood to examine how it happened I think is probably a little premature.  

            But again, as I said earlier, I think that everybody is -- I have no doubts that they're all doing the best jobs that they can and making the best of a really bad situation, and so we'll continue to engage at the conference level and at the national level, and the ripple effects of this will be felt for a long time. 

            As you mentioned in your question, I think there's just so many tentacles to this that are going to need to be addressed as we get through the immediate nature of what's happening on the day-to-day and start to look at some of the longer-term implications.  It's going to take some time.   

Q. Josh, you have some staff who have earned some performance bonuses.  You might have to change the trigger mechanism.  Do you have to talk to the chancellor or get board approval for that?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Yeah, we're looking at some of that.  We recognize that, particularly for some of our spring sport coaches, they're now not going to have that same opportunity to earn some performance bonuses that they may have had in the past, and those can be meaningful increases for some of our coaches, staff.  

            Another thing that we're studying is summer camps.  That's another opportunity that especially many of our assistant coaches have to earn supplemental income, and so those are open conversations right now that we're working through, recognizing that we have staff who have come to rely on at least some percentage of that income as part of their annual compensation, and we want to be fair to them and mindful of that.  

            So, I don't know the answer other than to say that it's on that list of things that we've got to contemplate.       

Q. Brad, you say we're just five days away from you walking off the court at Iowa giving high fives to the Orange Crush and you said you were at practice yesterday.  Can you describe just the roller coaster of this week, the emotion, how fast it happened and how the emotions changed so fast?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  We've hit the gamut of all of them.  You know, I probably hit the bottom this morning when my wife goes, now you've got plenty of time to clean out your closet.  

            We shift gears so quickly in basketball, and you know, it's -- when the final game is over, you just jump into recruiting, and you wake up and you've got another gear that you just go to because it's not X's and O's and it's not your team and now it's recruiting, and it never stops.  Now it's stopped.  

            Winning the last game, winning against Iowa, getting the double bye, we were all ecstatic.  That was something that meant a lot.  And then to -- for me personally to have Tyler out there, to have this group of seniors out there, I mean, I was so happy for them.  

            You know, and I'll be real; having my contract extended was extremely important and very, very pleasing, that emotion was a part of it.  Man, when you're in a place you love, and it's the cliché, you don't mess with happy, you are happy, and yet I don't think we ever lose the -- or I don't, anyway, understanding of why I got into this business and this profession, and that's to help young people grow and to see that -- I mean, I had a pit in my stomach when we got to Indy and saw kind of what was happening, and then when you got -- you're out there practicing, and if you knew how good yesterday's practice was, Derek sitting back there nodding, I mean, we were off the chart.  And you're sitting there halfway through and you find out that they've pulled the teams and you know it's over, and you just know where it's going to go.  That's a -- it's raw emotion.  I don't know how to explain it.  

Q. Brad, you mentioned earlier this team has been fun and you've enjoyed coaching it so much.  What was it about it?  We've seen the moments on the court, but what behind the scenes made this so enjoyable?  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Oh, their personalities.  You guys have gotten to know them.  You guys have gotten to experience them as much as I have.  This is character over characters, and our character is really high, and we've got great guys, and they were fun.  They accepted challenges.  They wanted to learn.  They continued to grow.  It's a blessing to sit there and watch a guy like Ayo get better, and Andres Feliz dive on the floor for a loose ball, and to see Ayo who didn't do that at one point in his career, now he's doing it four times in a game to win, and the understanding and the development of what it takes to win, when they didn't last year.  That's special, man.  That's fun stuff.  

            You know, you always -- you always love going to practice when they want to continue to listen and to grow, and I loved every single day of our 102 practices.             

Q. We saw the NBA -- a player actually contract this.  How comforting is it getting ahead of it maybe and not having a player get this yet?  Getting out ahead of this.  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  Yeah, I don't know that comforting is the right word.  Again, I have a pretty limited understanding of how this thing actually works, but it's going to make its way to Champaign.  It's going to make its way to the university.  I think with 10,000 student-athletes in the Big Ten, I think for us to sit back and say that none of those 10,000 have already contracted the virus would be naïve.  

            And so I think that -- I'm happy, I'm really happy that nobody within our department or among our student-athletes has presented with symptoms yet, but I don't know that -- I think that these decisions are minimizing the spread and the risk of the spread for our population, but they're certainly not eliminating that risk, and that's, I think, the challenge that we're facing as a society is so that we can put all these steps in place and we can self-quarantine and we can be as mindful and careful as we can be, but the minute we step into a room like this one, you're all sitting there next to each other, one of you may have the virus and not even know it.  

            And so you take all these measures, and then as soon as you reexpose yourself by going out to dinner or going to the grocery store, doing whatever, going to the park with your kids, then the steps that you just took before that get a little bit undercut, and so that's the challenge, I think, that we're all facing with this new environment.     

Q. I know a lot of Ayo's goals were shared throughout that locker room, but he had an opportunity at the next level last off-season, will have another one this off-season.  It meant a lot to you to get back to the NCAA Tournament.  What will your approach be with him?  I know he felt like you guys still had a lot of unfinished business.  

            BRAD UNDERWOOD:  Well, you're talking about a young man who was getting ready to perform on the stage that he loved the most, and that was the big stage.  My love for Ayo runs well beyond what you guys could even imagine.  There's a young man who loved this university, wanted to see it get back to where he knows it belongs -- he and I had an unbelievably common link in terms of wanting to see this thing grow, and I mean, his pride is second to none, and his ability to work, and I've said it many, many times, I've not been around a player as committed to success and work as Ayo is.  

            That's not just on the court.  I mean, he's handled himself off the court in the academic endeavors, he's handled that off the court with his social habits, at a top-self level, and that has helped get us to this point.  

            You know, we'll see what his future holds.  I think everything is up in the air with the NBA.  What's going to happen with their season, what's going to happen with the combine, what's going to happen with the draft.  I think everything is -- at this point we've seen the power of sport, and it's at all levels.  I mean, The Masters was postponed.  I mean, we've seen all of spring training.  We've seen NHL, we've seen NBA, we've seen the XFL.  We've seen so many things happen.  So, I think sport is a powerful thing, and in AYO's case, we'll be there to support him in any way we can.        

Q. With all the services you said would still be available for student-athletes, is counseling a part of that, maybe for senior athletes who just had a maybe their life as a college athlete end unexpectedly?  

            JOSH WHITMAN:  It is, yeah.  We have a fairly robust mental health structure in place that's always available to our student-athletes, but we've already been in communication with them here over the last 24 hours in particular in this instance, making sure that we have resources available for them as they -- as I said, as they continue to wrestle with the implications of this for some of them for the end of their careers, and that can come in a lot of different forms.  Certainly our coaches, our athletic trainers, our academic counselors, there are a lot of people who form really close relationships with our student-athletes, and so they'll be surrounding them and making sure that they're available but then also trained professionals, as well, will be a part of those resources.