NEW YORK — Conor Crean saw the alerts coming in hot on his phone. The St. John’s senior saxophone player admits band members aren’t supposed to look at their phones during games, but he couldn’t avoid the incessant notifications.
Just before noon Eastern Time on Thursday, conference after conference began abruptly cancelling its respective basketball tournaments. The SEC, the Big Ten, the Big 12—everyone, it seemed, across the country was doing it. Everyone except the Big East, whose quarterfinal matchup between St. John’s and Creighton at Madison Square Garden was still inexplicably underway on FS1 as the news started breaking.