Tim Benz: Coronavirus reaction robs Ivy League players of joy Robert Morris experiences

It’s the one time when bad body language can look good.

The piece of net around Josh Williams’ neck appeared to weigh 500 pounds. The Robert Morris guard slowly leaned forward to pick up the microphone to answer postgame questions after his team beat St. Francis (Pa.) 77-67 in the NEC men’s basketball final.

He appeared to have the elation of exhaustion. Not only because the redshirt senior had just played 34 minutes. Also, because, no doubt, that rush of adrenaline after winning the title was just starting to leave his body.

The weight of trying so hard to get into the NCAA tournament was off his shoulders, allowing him to reflect and relax.

He lost in the MAC final twice with Akron before transferring to Robert Morris and losing in the NEC semifinal last year. The redshirt senior’s 17 points helped push the Colonials into the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2015.

Williams spoke deliberately as he referenced a quote he read from Muhammad Ali this week.

“‘Only a man who has been defeated can look to the bottom of his soul and grab the ounce that he needs to win the match when it is even,’” Williams said. “I’ve been defeated before. And I didn’t want that to happen again.”

Somewhere in New Haven, Conn. or Cambridge, Mass. a senior ball player for Yale or Harvard should be enjoying that same sense of elated fatigue at the end of the Ivy League tournament.

Somewhere in Princeton, N.J. or at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, an underclassman should be feeling that “ounce” build up inside his soul for next season.

None of those players are excited. Just tragically disappointed. Because the Ivy League canceled its tournament Tuesday, due to fears surrounding the coronavirus.

That decision stranded Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Penn as they were about to square off in the semifinals, vying for that same right to cut down the nets that RMU enjoyed later in the evening.

Instead, the title was merely awarded to Yale, the regular-season champion. They’ll advance to the NCAA tournament.

But they do so via email. Not by defending their 2019 title on the court like the champions they are.

Penn and Princeton, champions the previous two seasons, found out they were losers via the same announcement.

Losers via the “send button.” Not losers by virtue of coming up short despite their best efforts in competition.

And Harvard’s players — who had just beaten Yale in the regular season finale and finished second in league play — saw their season end by reading a press release on their phones.

Penn’s players — men and women — are filing a petition. Good. They should. I hope they win.

Whatever “winning” does for them at this point.

Imagine being Harvard’s version of Josh Williams. You’ve been trying to get to the NCAA tournament your whole career, losing in the conference finals your last two years, and you find out your career has ended thanks to a Google alert.

That’s wrong. That’s got to hurt far worse than a three-pointer from Yale at the buzzer.

“It’s such a shame about the Ivy League,” Colonials coach (and Penn alum) Andy Toole said after his victory. “To have your career ended in that kind of manner is crushing.”

The reaction from the sports world to the coronavirus is somewhere between panic, pragmatism and prudence.

To me, it appears many sports entities (and universities) are augmenting the panic, by way of being pragmatic, under the veil of being prudent.

I definitely think that’s what the Ivy League and its member institutions did with this decision.

All the coronavirus-inspired decisions to cancel games or tournaments — or limit access to fans and media — smell funny to me. I feel like the bottom line is… well… the “bottom line.”

The sports reaction in the United States feels like it is about money. Not public health.

I feel like every league, conference, college, stadium authority, etc. has gotten its bean counters in a room and pounded the numbers into a calculator.

”What’s our potential exposure from a liability standpoint versus the bath we’ll take for cancelling our game/tournament? If a player or reporter or fan catches coronavirus while at our event, what’s the cost of a potential legal defense looking like? More or less than what we’ll make at the gate?”

I mean, the ACC tournament makes a lot of money. It’s still going on. They had baby races at halftime of one of the games!

The Ivy League tournament? Not as valuable. Not as important. So let’s ditch it. Student athletes be damned.

“Screw them! They aren’t paying our legal fees!”

The tone of all of this strikes me like decision makers are studying balance sheets and public relations reports.

Not medical studies.

The approach seems to be: If potential legal exposure is more than or close to what will be made on tickets, television rights and concessions, then cancel.

However, if a profit is still likely — game on! Oh. But, no media interviews or fan autographs or anything like that. Gotta look like we care for Twitter, ya know?

Robert Morris and the NEC decided staging their championship game was worth that risk. It’s cost-benefit analysis. Pure and simple.

What? You think RMU was blissfully unaware of the coronavirus? I saw RMU president Chris Howard at halftime. I went up to shake his hand. He gave me a Jose Canseco “Bash Brother” forearm instead.

I just “Bash Brothered” a university president. That’s what coronavirus has done to our consciousness.

Every door I saw at the arena was opened by a sleeve. At last weekend’s RMU hockey game, “Romo” the mascot was only fist bumping people.

HE IS IN A COSTUME!!!!! HE’S NOT A REAL PERSON!!!!

RMU and the NEC were that concerned. But a basketball game was played anyway in front of a crowd of 4,000 people.

Why? Because the maximum reward was deemed worth the potentially minimal risk. That’s why

It would’ve been worth it for the Ivy League players, too.