More than a week later, and you can still hear the ache in Will Bolt's voice.
Nebraska's first-year baseball coach, like everyone else, has had to come to terms with a new reality in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that has spread across the world and continues to grow in the United States.
He's also had to try and figure out how to move his program forward once the sports world starts spinning again.
"The first couple days, everybody was really, honestly, walking around in a bit of a fog. Because it hits you so suddenly," Bolt told the Journal Star on Friday. "Your normal, day-to-day routine is ripped away from you.
"But once you kind of get over that initial disappointment and frustration, you start to realize that, 'OK, there's a lot more important things at stake here.'"
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The Huskers were about two hours away from boarding a bus for Wichita State on March 12 when the news came down. The coaching staff had just finished packing. A few players had trickled into the locker room while others were finishing up classes.
Just like that, the season was over.
Earlier in the week, Bolt's biggest concern was whether the first game of the series against the Shockers would have to be moved up because of potentially bad weather.
One day before, March 11, the Huskers had defeated Northern Colorado 8-1 in front of 3,909 fans at Haymarket Park. That came hours before the Nebraska basketball team took on Indiana at the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis, and the dominoes began to fall around the sports world.
Little did anyone know that that game would be the 15th and final contest of the season.
"Gosh, I feel like we had two or three (team meetings) those first few days, just to try — first of all, with the virus, just trying to ease everybody's concerns at first," Bolt said. "And then once the information started trickling in about the weekend being canceled, we met and just talked about some things.Â
"And then once we hear that we're canceled (for the season), then it becomes a little bit more real, right? It's like, 'Wow, this is big.'"
Nebraska's players have mostly scattered to their hometowns. As Bolt put it, "there wasn't a whole lot for them to do here."
And the Huskers have gone home with plenty of questions, especially the team's six seniors — Joe Acker, Ben Klenke, Luke Roskam, Ty Roseberry, Mojo Hagge and Gareth Stroh. They could choose to end their college careers and move on with their lives. They could choose to come back and get a do-over on their senior years, should that option become available.
While the NCAA announced Friday that all spring sports athletes in Division II would receive another season of eligibility, what happens with Division I sports — baseball and others — is still to be determined. Will roster sizes change? Will more scholarships be added? What about recruiting?
The NCAA announced later in the day Friday that the Division I council would vote on eligibility relief March 30.
"In principle, the coordination committee agrees relief should be extended to spring sport student-athletes and supports providing schools with a framework in which they have the autonomy to make their own decisions in the best interest of their campus, conference and student athletes," the NCAA's statement read.
Bolt would like to see that eligibility relief happen.
"I think in a perfect world, everybody gets a year back. We only played 15 games," Bolt said. "But I also understand a lot of ramifications that come from that. It's a trickle-down, from a scholarship standpoint, and where's the money going to come from.
"It doesn't just affect next year, but it ultimately could affect two and three (recruiting) classes down the line."
The bottom line no matter what happens, Bolt said, is this: Everything is uncharted territory right now. For more than half his life, the 40-year-old Bolt has had baseball to turn to in the spring. Now his days are spent at home with his family, helping to home school and watch his three young children. And while he's grateful for that time, a void remains.
Bolt, like a lot of baseball coaches in a lot of places at a lot of levels, preaches to his players one thing above all others — control what you can control.
But now, the uncontrollable has taken over.
"This is something that, it's a good life lesson right now," Bolt said.
"Sometimes there's things in our life that aren't fair. And I think that's part of the realization that we have to come to. This is bigger than baseball."