KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Standing in a corridor of the T-Mobile Center after Kansas swamped West Virginia, 87-63, in the Big 12 tournament semifinals, Kansas Jayhawks senior Ochai Agbaji paused to consider the undercurrent of a moment that somehow seemed normal enough but actually was an anguishing few years in the making.
Two years before, in this round of the tournament on this very site, after all, Texas and Texas Tech had been warming up when the event was abruptly canceled. A day after the NBA shutdown catalyzed by reckless "accidental hero" Rudy Gobert testing positive for COVID-19, the Big 12's shutdown was among the first ripples that soon engulfed the entire sports world — and, of course, convulsed the world itself.
Then, last year, after KU beat Oklahoma in a quarterfinal here, Kansas withdrew because of a positive COVID test within the program, per protocols in place at the time.
