“I just walked around in a daze for awhile,” Joe Lunardi said on the phone March 14, just two days after the decision was made to cancel the 2020 NCAA Tournament. “Kind of like ‘alright what do you do now?’ Personally it’s my job to create updates for the network as games end, and ‘what does this mean for seeding, for the bracket?’ I was doing that in a state of high alert for several weeks without a break. You’re all geared up to go through Selection Sunday and through to the end of the tournament. Then all of the sudden it’s like the power goes out in your house.”

Lunardi, the St. Joe’s alum who is credited with creating bracketology, had been penceling in predictions for the 2020 NCAA Tournament since before the 2019 tournament ended. 

It’s his year round career, but in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Lunardi was able to bring some perspective to “bracketology” and the world of sports being put on hold. 

“As sad as it is for players, coaches and fans, we are talking about basketball games,” Lunardi said. “I think the key word here is games. We’re all just going to have to figure out something to do here for the next few weekends.”

These games however, have netted some of the most thrilling moments in sports history. The cancelation of March Madness seemed to evoke a greater reaction among fans and players than the suspension of the NBA, NHL, and MLB seasons. As sports gambling websites, analysts and fans try to simulate what could have been, such simulations just couldn’t do the spectacle of March Madness justice, according to Lunardi.

“The reason we love the tournament, is because the million in one shot happens and we get to watch it,” Lunardi said. 

Lunardi said he was hearing rumors on the night of March 11 that the games being played on the west coast at that time could be the last college basketball games of the season. 

“They were still looking at scenarios to try to save it, maybe a smaller field,” Lunardi said. “Having worked both in athletics and university administration, once the schools started essentially closing down, you can’t justify having your basketball team out there traipsing across the country and playing games.”

Fans and players alike have been pushing for the NCAA to still hold Selection Sunday, an annual tradition in which the NCAA Tournament bracket is announced. It would bring closure to teams that were projected to make the tournament and could result in a banner hanging in the rafters. 

However, every member of the NCAA Tournament selection committee is either a commissioner of a conference or an athletic director. It wouldn’t make sense to have them prioritizing hypotheticals over taking preventative action in their own domains against the coronavirus, according to Lunardi. 

“I know I’m in the minority on this because it seems as though everyone wants them to do the selections anyway,” Lunardi said. “I have to tell you, as a guy that builds more mock brackets than any human being on the planet, no disrespect, but our job is to do what doesn’t matter. Our job is to do hypotheticals and that’s where we are now so leave it to the bracketologists I suppose. I’m available, I’ve got all kinds of time.”

ESPN’s “Bracketology” page still features Lunardi’s latest bracket projection from March 12, mere hours before the cancelation announcement came through. It will likely be looked at by college basketball fans across the country as the most accurate depiction of what the 2020 NCAA Tournament field would have looked like.  

“I didn’t know that it was going to be my last one,” Lunardi said. “I thought, ‘well maybe I should go back and try a little harder and make sure that I like it’. But The Committee doesn’t get that chance. I’ve always prided myself on doing every bracket as if it’s ‘the one’ and following all the principles and procedures that the real committee uses. There aren’t any shortcuts in that process and I’ve never taken shortcuts. That bracket was posted Thursday morning and it will stay there until we do the first bracket for next year.”

As for that first bracket for next year, Lunardi said he’s “just not ready to go there yet.”

However, he was willing to take a look back. What if this happened during the historic 2003-04 St. Joe’s run, like it did to the University of Dayton Flyers this year?

“That [St. Joe’s] team lost its first game in the [Atlantic10] tournament quarterfinals in Dayton, so maybe if they canceled that morning, we may have been undefeated and finished number one. We would be the mythical national champion,” Lunardi said, adding with a laugh, “I didn’t think of that until just now so [that] just ruined my day.”