No one saw it coming.

But how could they? There was no precedent for the events about to unfold. The scene, like something out of a work of post-apocalyptic science fiction, was suddenly set. An electric empty arena. Standing room only for a thousand absent fans. March without the madness.

Less than 48 hours before No. 6 Johns Hopkins, a surging program with tangible national title aspirations, was set to host to an upstart Penn State Harrisburg squad making its first-ever trip to the big dance, the first domestic rumblings of an unimaginable global pandemic were felt in Baltimore on the eve of the opening round of the 2020 NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament. In the late hours of an otherwise quiet Wednesday night, the shocking news broke.

No fans permitted.

The first decree banning spectators from a sporting event in the United States had come down. Before Rudy Gobert playfully “contaminated” half a dozen recording devices at a postgame press conference, before the NBA pulled Thunder and Jazz players from the floor and cancelled its season, before the NCAA responded in kind, there was Johns Hopkins hosting an NCAA Regional devoid of fans. In the moment, it angered some and inconvenienced others. In hindsight, it was a mere inevitability, coming nearly a week before the rest of the world followed suit.      

In terms of talented teams and marquee matchups, the 2020 NCAA Tournament was already shaping up to be one of the most exciting in recent memory. Had basketball fans known what lied ahead, they would have certainly cherished this particular opening weekend even more so, anticipating the initial salvo as if it were the Final Four.

The nationally-ranked Blue Jays (24-3), led by all-American and Centennial Conference Player of the Year Conner Delaney, were fresh off a last-second victory over previously unbeaten and No. 1 Swarthmore in the conference title game. Delaney’s buzzer-beating midrange jumper as time expired dashed the Garnet’s hopes of an undefeated season and halted a 26-game win streak for the nation’s top team.

The Lions (20-7) had used late-game heroics of their own to capture the program’s first conference championship. Trailing by five with 72 seconds remaining in regulation, budding star and North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) Player of the Year Donyae Baylor-Carroll connected on a deep, contested 3-pointer to cut the deficit to one possession before Zegary Scott III converted the game-tying layup with 23 seconds left. Led by eight Baylor-Carroll points in overtime, Penn State Harrisburg outscored a talented Lancaster Bible squad 12-5 in the extra session to punch its ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history.

And so it was that a first-round matchup of conference champions riding the wave of title game magic was slated for Friday night, March 6.

Then came the caveat.

“We went to dinner after we had our NCAA meeting, got back to the hotel around 10:30 p.m. and then I went to bed,” recalled Penn State Harrisburg head coach Don Friday regarding the spectator ban. “I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and had a text message that said ‘I am so sorry.’ I thought somebody died. Turns out it was a link to an ESPN article about a Division III basketball game being quarantined due to COVID. By the time I processed everything, I had about 75 more messages.”

Fans or no fans, the game would be played. Looking back, it was a blessing in and of itself. Amidst the disappointment of family, friends and alumni, Friday and his staff were suddenly tasked with rallying the team and reminding his players of the stakes, no matter how bare the bleachers.

“If I would have been 10 or 15 years younger, I think I would have made it a bigger deal,” Friday continued. “Instead, we made it a point to focus on basketball, keep it about basketball and not get caught up on the distractions. I told the guys, ‘we are playing a high-stakes scrimmage with no fans like we did in the preseason and the team that comes out with the most energy and focus that isn’t looking around punch-drunk is going to win this game.’”

The pregame proceedings had an eerie feel to them. The random pitter-pat of 30 bouncing basketballs clashed against the syncopated rhythm of well-rehearsed hand claps. The blare of a buzzer reverberated loudly off the ceiling. The shriek of an official’s whistle vibrated off the walls. Outside of the participants, the only noticeable chatter came from the scorer’s table. The soundtrack to the most consequential game of the season played like a cacophony with the volume turned way, way down.

Pregame introductions provided much-needed familiarity for both sides, a semblance of normalcy and a friendly reminder that despite the rows and rows of empty seats inside Goldfarb Gymnasium, a basketball game was moments away from tipping off. For Friday and his squad, a strong start was pivotal.

“In the first five minutes, I thought it was very important that we came out and established ourselves and showed that we could play and we could believe,” said Friday. “And that’s the way we played it.”

It was evident in the early going that the Lions weren't just happy to be there. A Nate Curry 3-ball just 18 seconds into the contest calmed any lingering nerves. Another jumper from the NEAC Rookie of the Year at the 18:07 mark made clear the message - a mere seat at the table wouldn’t suffice. This group had bigger goals in mind. Before the night was through, the talented freshman would tally 19 points and five rebounds on 8-of-11 shooting from the floor.

The opening exchange played less like a feeling out process between two programs meeting for the first time and more like a refrain from “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better),” reserved for longtime rivals prepared to go blow for blow for 40 (or in this case, 50) minutes.

“Hitting that first bucket felt like a statement,” said Friday about his team’s promising start. “Like we’re here, we’re not going to be frazzled.”

The first half included 13 lead changes and five ties. When Johns Hopkins pulled ahead 8-5 at the 16:38 mark, Pedro Rodriguez answered with a triple on the ensuing possession. Curry knocked down another jump shot and Baylor-Carroll converted a rare 4-point play to put the visitors back in front with 13:19 left until halftime. The Blue Jays went back ahead when Tom Quarry sank one from beyond the arc but Rodriguez had the hot hand, burying back-to-back 3-balls to push the Penn State Harrisburg lead to 20-18. The teams traded buckets before a second Baylor-Carroll 3-pointer and a Clinton Asalu jumper made it 27-23 with 8:32 to go until the break. After Quarry’s transition triple gave JHU a 30-27 lead, the Lions closed out the final six minutes of the half with a 13-3 run sparked by a Dylan Daniels two-handed jam and capped with an offensive rebound and putback from Baylor-Carroll.

Penn State Harrisburg shot 57.7 percent from the field in the first half, including 58.3 percent from beyond the arc, held the Blue Jays to 36.7 percent shooting from the floor and took a 40-33 advantage into halftime.

Friday mentioned the grit of Rodriguez, along with the defensive prowess of Scott, and how it helped set the tone in the opening 20 minutes. The team’s sixth man for the majority of the season, Rodriguez was thrust into a larger role in NCAA play. The shifty guard made the most of the opportunity, netting 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting in 45 minutes of action. Scott, the floor general who drew the unenviable task of trying to slow the lightning-quick Delaney, dished out 10 assists and helped hold one of the nation’s top players to a respectable seven first-half points.

After as good a first half as Penn State Harrisburg could envision, the Lions remained hot to begin the second. Daniels connected on a corner 3-pointer to begin the half, a rare shot selection for the nation’s top rim protector. Quarry cut the deficit in half with five straight points, however, and a Delaney jumper pulled the home team to within four with 17:11 left to play. Daniels showed off his range for the second time when he hit another 3-ball at the 15:50 mark to bump the lead back to seven. The country’s leader in blocked shots would finish with a gutsy 14-point, 12-rebound double-double and four rejections.

Then, the night’s most unfortunate development proved the game’s turning point. Only not in the way anyone could have anticipated.

With 15:36 remaining, Delaney subbed out, gingerly making his way to the bench and eventually the training area. Unbeknownst in the moment, Delaney, one of the country’s most exciting talents, had played his last basketball of the season. An injury cut short the night of JHU’s headliner with the hosts facing a seven-point deficit and an unwavering Penn State Harrisburg squad proving its worthiness with each passing possession.

Rather than roll over, however, Hopkins responded. Instead of deflation, determination. The ball movement was crisp. Screens were sound. Players cut without the basketball. With no one particular threat for Penn State Harrisburg's stingy 2-3 zone to smother, and perhaps galvanized by the loss of their leader, the Blue Jays put together their best stretch of the night.

After watching their advantage shrink to one over the ensuing five minutes, the Lions momentarily held off a suddenly soaring Johns Hopkins thanks to a Rodriguez jump shot and two consecutive triples from Baylor-Carroll. The advantage was back to seven with nine minutes to play. But the door had been cracked, and JHU was about to kick it in.

As the ensuing minutes ticked away and crunch time edged closer, Penn State Harrisburg struggled, going scoreless for the next six minutes. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays took flight. Starting with a Carsen James free throw at the 8:46 mark, Hopkins launched into a momentum-changing 15-0 spurt that culminated with a James jumper in the paint. For the home team, a shaky seven-point deficit was suddenly a seemingly-comfortable 70-62 cushion.

Curry mercifully connected on a foul line jumper to end the run and pull his team to within six before Friday burned his last timeout with less than three minutes to play. It proved the most important stoppage in program history. Despite the momentum shift in the minutes prior, Friday’s group was surprisingly calm. The message in the huddle remained the same.

“We talked about being in the moment and nothing else,” said Friday. “We felt like we were built for a moment like this.”

Sometimes the best approach is the simplest and after the timeout, the Lions turned to their sharpshooter. By the end of his unconventional career, Baylor-Carroll’s exhaustive resume would prove ripe with clutch conversions in tense moments, oftentimes on the biggest stage. These were the last minutes of anonymity for the burgeoning star. The final seconds before the rest of the nation was widely introduced to DBC.

“I knew Donyae always had a different gear to him,” said Friday about his then-rising luminary. “I think a lot of people probably looked down on our league. But they didn’t know how good he was. There were about four minutes left and he said to me on the sideline, ‘Coach, stop this other stuff, get me the ball and I’ll bring us home.’ You know what I did? I got him the ball.”

The visitors got the stop they needed and on the other end, Baylor-Carroll made it a one-possession game when he buried a straightaway 3-ball with 2:18 to play. Quarry missed a layup the next time down the floor and Baylor-Carroll pounced again, pushing the pace and converting a left-handed scoop in transition while being fouled. Moments later, he completed the old-fashioned 3-point play to draw even with 1:50 remaining.

With Delaney sidelined, James rose to the occasion for Hopkins. The talented freshman hit a jumper with 1:38 left and Chad Nnake went 1-for-2 from the charity stripe to make it 73-70 Blue Jays with less than a minute to play. Back to Baylor-Carroll the Lions went and again he answered the call. After being bowled over attempting a wing 3-pointer, the sophomore calmly sank all three free throw attempts that followed to tie things up with 37 seconds left.

Each team got a last look in regulation but neither found the mark. As if vowing the best was yet to come, the basketball gods blessed the competitors and the audience tuning in online with five more minutes (and five more after that) of what proved to be some of the best action in recent tournament memory.

The night began with plenty of buzz surrounding one of the country’s top individual talents. It was about to end that way as well. Delaney’s inclusion on every major watch-list was well-deserved, but the time had arrived to add DBC to the club. Like an old-west gunslinger riding into town for the first time, this opportunity was the stuff of legend. The shootout was on. Hopkins drew first, but Penn State Harrisburg's young marksman was about to empty the chamber.  

The Blue Jays struck first in overtime but Baylor-Carroll briskly answered with the equalizer on a driving layup through traffic. The Lions quickly got down the floor after a miss on the other end and a hustling Baylor-Carroll found a streaking Rodriguez for the go-ahead layup with 2:23 remaining. After a Johns Hopkins turnover, Baylor-Carroll connected on another 3-ball, stretching the lead to 80-75 with 1:43 left. Fresh off a conference championship victory that also required extra time, Penn State Harrisburg had been here before. And it was starting to show.

“Overtime, we embrace it,” said Baylor-Carroll during his postgame press conference. “We’re ready to play another five minutes, which is something you can’t say about a lot of teams. Our team is ready to fight every second of the game.”

James, playing well beyond his years, responded with an old-fashioned 3-point play of his own and Ethan Bartlette added the game-tying layup with 34 seconds to play. With a four-second difference between the shot and game clocks, Baylor-Carroll coolly bided his time near midcourt before shaking off a defender on his hip and hitting a monstrous, step-back 3-pointer with just six seconds left. JHU quickly inbounded the ball and a streaking James bounded up the floor before firing off and sinking a stunning, game-tying triple as time expired to force an improbable second extra session.

HopTV play-by-play man Connor Newcomb and color commentator Jeff Jezewski were fantastic on the call, adding their patented insight and providing context to the season’s most thrilling contest. As the night wore on, their appreciation for Baylor-Carroll’s mesmerizing effort grew, and their description of his performance provided the much-needed gravitas it warranted. 

“He’s a guy who’s going to get his,” said Newcomb after a Baylor-Carroll bucket early in the first half. “You just don’t want him getting too much.”

“This guy’s good,” he added following a Baylor-Carroll 3-ball just before halftime. “This guy’s really good.”

“You can guard him as close as you want, he’s going to make it,” marveled Jezewski when Baylor-Carroll sank a triple over the outstretched arms of two defenders early in the first overtime period.

But nothing summed up Baylor-Carroll’s heroics quite like Newcomb’s astounded utterance, part admiration and part incredulity, following DBC's first field goal of the second extra session - a fallaway catch-and-shoot triple from the wing with a defender in tow.   

“This guy can’t miss!”

A better description you will not find. Baylor-Carroll could not miss. And when it mattered most, he did not miss. The catalyst of the season’s most significant upset, he poured in 45 points, including 18 across the pair of overtime periods, connected on nine 3-pointers, dished out six assists, grabbed five rebounds and swiped three steals. On this night, Baylor-Carroll, the smallest player on the floor at 5-foot-7, stood head and shoulders above the rest.

“I felt a sense of basically it’s you against me,” he said about his performance down the stretch. “That’s the mindset I took. I felt like my team had a lot of confidence in me. It’s only five minutes left. Win or go home. Pick your best and we’re going to attack it. During those overtimes, you got to stop us. I just stayed confident, stayed in the moment and tried to hit big time shots.”

His go-ahead 3-pointer to begin the second overtime period was a big shot. His pair of free throws with 3:17 left were big shots. Three more conversions from the foul line with 2:33 remaining, three more big shots. When Baylor-Carroll zipped a pass through a gaggle of Hopkins defenders to a wide-open Rodriguez for a reverse layup that made it 93-86 at the 1:56 mark, it felt more and more like this particular Cinderella story would get the happy ending it deserved.

After a pair of JHU free throws, Curry knocked down a baseline jumper off a Scott find to make it 95-88 with 1:19 to play. Baylor-Carroll added two more free throws, Scott broke away for a fastbreak finger roll and Curry tacked on a pair of layups in the final 40 seconds. With one last emphatic spike of the basketball and a celebratory chest bump with Rodriguez as the final horn sounded, Baylor-Carroll put an exclamation point on one of the most memorable and hotly-contested NCAA Tournament games of the last quarter century.

“What a game in Baltimore,” beamed Newcomb prior to the start of the second OT. “You’re not going to see a better game in college hoops this season.”

With five more rounds of NCAA action originally set to follow, there was an outside chance Newcomb's declaration would prove premature. Instead, it proved prophetic.

The night after the victory at Johns Hopkins, Penn State Harrisburg’s season came to an end at the hands of a nationally-ranked Yeshiva team that rostered a pair of all-Americans, including eventual national player of the year and NBA G-Leaguer Ryan Turrell. Before the Macabees or any other Division III program could make a run at a national title, however, the world came to a standstill amidst an international health crisis not seen in a century.

But in the years after history’s most heart-pounding empty-arena win, Friday continued to lead Penn State Harrisburg to heights never before seen in program history. Following a year without competition in 2020-21, but with much of the core from the 2020 team returning for one last run, the Lions captured a second straight conference championship in 2022 and again knocked off a top-10 program in NCAA play, this time earning a win over No. 9 St. Joseph (Conn.). In 2024, Penn State Harrisburg, powered by a returning Baylor-Carroll and a seasoned Curry, won its third conference title and secured another NCAA Tournament victory over a Hood squad receiving votes in the national rankings.

But as with so many great directors, success rarely comes without struggle. Despite multiple NCAA Tournament appearances during a stint at Lycoming and a Division III national championship victory at Lebanon Valley while serving as an assistant on the staff of legendary head coach Pat Flannery, Friday’s illustrious 30-year career nearly came to a premature end a decade ago following a Division I head coaching stop. He’s been incredibly raw and honest in his appreciation for what he describes as “the chance” director of athletics Rahsaan Carlton took on him when hired to lead Penn State Harrisburg's men’s basketball program in 2013. As evidenced by Friday’s track record, it’s obvious Carlton’s gamble paid off.

As for the star of the show that evening, Baylor-Carroll took the road less traveled before wrapping up his magnificent four-year career with an all-at-once “return” and “farewell” tour in 2023-24. His basketball journey appeared finished when he stepped away following the 2021-22 campaign, only for him to return after a one-year hiatus. Once overlooked prior to that historic night in Baltimore, his final season ended with consensus all-America honors from the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and D3hoops.com, an NABC — Reese’s Division III All-Star Game selection and a pair of NCAA Statistical Championships. His head coach witnessed the greatness of many a special player over the years the likes of Mike Rhoades, JR Holden and Bryan Bailey. When asked where Baylor-Carroll’s otherworldly performance against Johns Hopkins ranks in the pantheon, he didn’t mince words.

“The best,” said Friday. “It’s the best.”

A handful of institutional administrators. A few health professionals and sports medicine staff. An even smaller smattering of writers and photographers. Those lucky few who witnessed the greatest Division III basketball game never attended.

“When we left that day leading up to that tournament, I don’t know if anyone believed we could win that game,” said Friday. “But you also have to paint a picture of positivity. I remember telling our guys to pack two sets of dress clothes and our coaches to pack two suits. Looking back on it, whether there were 2,000 people there or none, whether it was broadcast on national television or not, no one can ever take that away from us.”

March roared in like a lion amidst an atmosphere suited for lambs. On an unforgettable night in the days before the Earth stood still, Penn State Harrisburg took its first steps towards the national relevance it would experience in the years to come. Behind a herculean effort from Baylor-Carroll, a masterclass from Friday and the relentlessness of a team and program on the verge of something truly special, the Division III men’s basketball landscape suddenly looked different.

And no one saw it coming.

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