March is the month of basketball tournaments, and despite some mutterings about something called COVID, it seemed at first that March 2020 would be no different. On the 10th, the Summit League tournament women's final was held, with the greatest University of South Dakota team ever winning the championship over perennial mid-major power South Dakota State. In the Division 1 national polls released the day before, USD was #11 in the Coaches Poll and #17 in the AP.

The Coyotes were led by Ciara Duffy, the ESPNw and Becky Hammon mid-major Player of the Year, and AP All-American honorable mention. Not mid-major honorable mention, but all of Division 1. Although Duffy was a fine all-around wing player and went to the same grade school as I did (45 years apart), I don't think she was even the best player on the team. That would be Hannah Sjerven, who no one in the Summit League could handle down in the post, either offensively or defensively. Consistent with their ranking, it appeared USD would be a #4 or #5 seed in the national tournament, which would have been the highest ever for a Summit League team. (South Dakota State got a #6 seed in 2019 and progressed to the Sweet 16.)

As early March progressed, COVID became a bigger story day by day. On March 12, the hysteria climaxed and the NCAA cancelled its tournaments. USD would not get its appearance on the national stage, at least not in 2020. In 2022, the final season for Sjerven and current University of Minnesota Coach Dawn Plitzuweit, they were a #10 seed in the national tournament, easily beat Mississippi and Baylor to advance to the Sweet 16, then lost to Michigan by only three points. But for Duffy and others from the 2020 team, their chance at the Sweet 16 was gone forever.

USD's lost chance is the first thing I remember about the COVD shutdown. I know that I'm fortunate that no family tragedies overwhelm that memory. A few other random memories: Thinking "What are they doing?" the first time I saw people wearing masks at the grocery store. Going out for a walk and seeing people cross the street to avoid coming within 50 feet. And this "Stock Up for the Madness!" poster above a beer display on March 17, five days after the tournaments had been cancelled.

Stock up for the Madness, indeed.

To pass the time as the winter progressed into spring and the lockdown showed no signs of ending, I often went down to a pond about five blocks south of my house in Sioux Falls. Since I lived in South Dakota and not the People's Republic of Minnesota, it was permissible to leave the house for a walk or bike ride without the police shooting paintballs at me. The geese and ducks were busy having little ones and knew nothing of the travails being suffered by the humans. I blogged about it May 3 and May 6, 2020.

Today I was looking at 2020 images as part of my long-running archiving campaign. I decided to add six more images to my Ducks and Geese group, including the two shown below. These don't look like Canada Geese yet, but that is what they eventually became. At this stage on May 10, the eight or so goslings would pile together for warmth as mama sat nearby (visible in the background).

Later on in the year with much of the nation still crippled by the reaction to COVID, I somehow managed to get my house in shape to sell and completed our move to Montana.