The Game Day that should have been.

The DCU Center in Worcester, where today's games would have been played.

As I write this, I know that in another reality, I would have already been in my telecasting location at the DCU Center in Worcester, going over my notes and otherwise awaiting the start of my final basketball telecast of the year, this one for Foxboro Cable Access of the Foxboro girls' basketball team's game against Taconic High School of Pittsfield for the state Division 2 championship.

Unfortunately, as all of you well know, the game is not being played today. Nor will it ever be. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association followed the lead of practically every sports organization in the Western Hemisphere and canceled its games amid the rush of everyone to do so on Thursday of the past week.

I won't debate the wisdom of the decision here, but I don't agree with it. I don't believe we're in such an apocalyptic circumstance that they couldn't have staged the last basketball and hockey games -- even at smaller venues without spectators present -- and then closed the doors for another two weeks and reassessed things for the spring season at that point.

I understand the need to err on the side of caution. But for all we know, Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz already exposed the athletes and spectators that visited the TD Garden this past week to the coronavirus if the maintenance crew didn't wipe down every inch of the place with Clorox after the Jazz' visit on Friday, March 6.

But what's done is done. A lot of athletes, coaches, parents and fans -- and yes, even semi-retired sports reporters -- are saddened that they reached the highest level of their sport without being given the chance to prove themselves worthy of the distinction of "champions." Yes, both Foxboro and Taconic will be regarded as co-champions of Division 2. That's a nice gesture, although I don't know if it's consolation enough. And we'll probably never know. No one is ever going to be able to tell us that our lives were saved because we didn't drive to Worcester today.

In a story in the local paper of record, Coach Lisa Downs said the news she heard just before 5 p.m. Thursday hit her team hard.

“I walked into the gym at practice and they could see it on my face. There were a lot of devastated girls,” Downs said. “We thought we would be playing in an empty gym. Especially for the seniors, this is hard. We had been playing so well this March and we were just one game away.”

They will gather one more time as a team, and fortunately, they won't have to wait for long. It will be at the annual team banquet, which has not been postponed amid the pandemic fears. I'm sure there will be both smiles and tears as the season's accomplishments are reviewed, but at least they will always know that their last game was a winning effort at the home of the Celtics, and that they are now regarded as state champions in two of their last three seasons.

Still, I have a few random thoughts about what could have been, and I will share them with you now.

Foxboro's Yara Fawaz drives against North Reading.

(HockomockSports.com photo)

** Yes, I do think Foxboro would have defeated Taconic's Braves -- and not just because I would have been calling the game with Mark Davis on the Foxboro Cable Access telecast.

It would have been a tougher challenge than what North Reading put forth. Taconic (22-2) was a higher-scoring team than North Reading, averaging 57.7 and allowing just 37.0 amid lesser competition in the West section. There were some similarities to Foxboro's season; the Braves had their version of Milford, beating Monument Mountain 69-26 and 80-25, but their two losses were by a cumulative total of just eight points. They won 13 straight games to open the season before a 48-45 loss at Wahconah, and were 9-1 the rest of the way, while Foxboro was 9-2 and finished the season with a 15-game winning streak.

** There is one huge difference, however, and it was experience.

Foxboro started four seniors (Shakirah Ketant, Yara Fawaz, Lizzy Davis and Abby Hassman) and one junior (leading scorer Katelyn Mollica), while Taconic started two seniors (Taea Bramer and Tamia Patrick) and three sophomores (Ciany Conyers, Ahliya Phillips and Faith Cross). Their first player off the bench would have been junior guard Kendra Buda, beyond whom there were five freshmen that rarely contributed. Foxboro had at least four more players with appreciable varsity experience ready to play, led by junior guard Jordyn Collins, so I'd naturally give the edge to the Warriors.

It was also Taconic's first West sectional championship since 1993, while Foxboro's tournament pedigree extends as far back as the 1980s and runs through trips to the North-South game in 2017 and 2018 and a state title in the latter. They've been there before. That would have meant a lot.

** There was an argument to be made that Taconic almost didn't belong in the state final. They were leading Medway by just two points with time expiring in the West-Central semifinal when Medway inbounded the ball under the Taconic basket, a shot was missed, a Medway player rebounded and was fouled in the act of shooting with 0:00.2 showing on the scoreboard.

The officials waved off the foul and claimed the game was over, saying that time must have expired as the foul was called. But that was ABSOLUTELY the wrong conclusion, and I'll tell you why.

Countless studies show that it takes 3/10ths of a second for an individual to respond to an official's whistle and press the button to stop the clock. So if the clock operator heard the whistle and immediately hit the button to have the clock show 0:00.2, that means the whistle was probably blown closer to 0:00.5. So, the fouled player should have been allowed to go to the foul line and take two potentially game-tying free throws.

** Let's look at the matchups. Taconic's scorers are the sophomore forwards, Conyers (5-foot-6) and Phillips (5-foot-7). Both average 13.7 a game, but they would have had their hands full challenging the Foxboro defense, particularly Ketant down low. Cross (5.7 ppg) is a 5-10 frontcourter that had big scoring games against lesser competition, but would not have gotten her looks against Hassman, while Fawaz probably would have drawn Conyers, who had a greater shooting range. Bramer (10.4) might have been matched up against Davis, who would have taken away her penetrations, leaving Mollica to lock down Patrick, whose three-pointer with 5.5 seconds left won the Medway game. And Collins could have accepted any assignment to spell a starter.

My guess? Foxboro 50, Taconic 40. Foxboro's experience and conditioning would have resulted in a big fourth quarter.

** Of course, there would have been pitfalls. One was the court itself; it's been a while since I've been to the DCU, but unless the floor has been replaced in the last seven years (and I didn't find any indications it has been), guards bringing the ball up the court might have experienced the frustrating feeling of a dribble off a "dead spot," which often results in a turnover. The DCU floor rivaled the old Boston Garden parquet for the number of dead spots that could bedevil an unsuspecting player.

The last time I was there, too, there were three sets of three-point lines painted on the floor -- high school (19 feet, 9 inches), college (20-9), and NBA (23-9). That usually results in kids hucking up shots from at least 5 feet deeper than they usually would -- and yes, I did see Katelyn Mollica look down at the line she was closest to and step back to bury an NBA-length three at the TD Garden against North Reading.

** Speaking of Ms. Mollica, she finished her junior season with 480 points, which is the sixth-best single season of any Foxboro female athlete and ninth overall. Here are the leaders in that category:

Katelyn Mollica has
1,195 career points.

Player                          Points       Year
1. Sarah Behn                 948        1988-89
2. Jan VanDenBerghe   613        1960-61
3. Sarah Behn               601        1987-88
4. Sarah Behn               596        1986-87
5. Ashley Sampson       526        2017-18
6. Mike Myers              492        2003-04
7. Tim Cheney              482        2005-06
8. Heather Morgan       481        1999-2000
9. Katelyn Mollica    480       2019-20
10. Ashley Sampson     478       2016-17

Katelyn will enter her senior year with 1,195 career points. And in the days to come, I'll post some scoring totals from the local schools to put everything into historical perspective.

** And I bet the wi-fi signal inside the DCU Center would have been crappy. There I go again, only thinking about myself.

** One last tournament memory … years ago, when the arena was still called the Worcester Centrum, there used to be a Legal Sea Foods restaurant across the street. And on one day when I had multiple games to cover (it may have been in 1988 when I worked at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy), I left the arena after my first game to get a real meal before the second game.

Once I was seated, and just as I started to chow down on my baked stuffed lobster, I looked at the table closest to me and saw two familiar faces from what was then called the World Wrestling Federation, announcer Gene "Mean Gene" Okerlund and wrestler Dino Bravo, both enjoying their bowls of chowdah and waiting for their entrees.

I wasn't a big fan of pro wrestling, but I knew its characters because my colleague at The Sun Chronicle, Peter Gobis, would always turn on the TV on Monday nights and have the WWF matches playing in the background while we chased down scores. So, of course, I pulled out my Motorola Flip-Phone and called Gobis, telling him who was sitting across from me. But I spoke softly, because I didn't want them to know I was acting like a fan.

Bravo died five years later, at the age of 44, the victim of an unsolved murder in Montreal. Mean Gene also suffered a tragic (if not criminal) death, from complications of a fall at his Sarasota, Fla., home on Jan. 2, 2019. He was 75.

** Ah, what could have been. But enough regrets -- and my heartiest congratulations go to the Foxboro Warriors for a championship season.