PITTSBURGH — Jeff Capel didn’t know it for sure, but he suspected something was off with Au’Diese Toney last Saturday.
That day, Capel’s Pitt team soundly defeated Gardner-Webb, 67-50, and Toney had scored nine points on 2-of-8 shooting in the victory. It wasn’t a poor performance, but in a season in which the junior wing had been outstanding up to that point, there was something slightly askew. Toney, as his coach could sense, wasn’t quite himself.
After the game, Capel’s inkling proved to be correct. Earlier that day, Florida forward Keyontae Johnson had collapsed coming out of a timeout in the Gators’ game against Florida State and was rushed to a local hospital. It was news that reverberated throughout the college basketball world, but the emotional toll of it struck the Panthers’ locker room — and one player in particular — in a different, more searing way. Capel didn’t know it previously, but Johnson is one of Toney’s closest friends.
The days that have followed have been trying, tumultuous and taxing for Toney, threatening to overwhelm him with the questions of life and death with which a 21-year-old has to occasionally and unnaturally grapple. He’s managing as best as he can and has been comforted by encouraging updates about Johnson’s medical progress. But in an already difficult season that abruptly became that much more strenuous, that’s easier said than done.
“That could have happened to anybody,” Toney said Wednesday after Pitt’s win against Miami. “The simple fact that it happened to one of your relatives, your cousin, your family, it’s heartbreaking. It’s shocking. This really happened to somebody that’s close to me. You try to take your mind off of it. I use basketball for my sanctuary, to get away from my problems. Stuff like that with your family, it’s hard to try to overcome at that time.”
Toney and Johnson’s relationship goes back years. Their mothers grew up together and have maintained a longtime bond, one that has extended to their children, who were close despite living hundreds of miles apart (Johnson in Norfolk, Va., and Toney in Huntsville, Ala.).
In college, they have both flourished. Toney is in his third season as a starter and has improved dramatically as a junior, having nearly doubled his scoring average from last season while increasing his shooting percentages. Johnson, meanwhile, was a first-team all-SEC selection last season, and in October, he was named the conference’s preseason player of the year. Four days before he collapsed, Johnson was rated by Sports Illustrated as the No. 19 prospect for next year’s NBA draft. Everything was going well, with little reason to think it suddenly wouldn’t.
Shortly after the Panthers finished their shootaround Saturday, though, Toney was informed of what had happened in Tallahassee.
“It was devastating to hear that,” Toney said. “He’s doing so well on the court. He’s just a great person. It was heartbreaking. That’s his career in jeopardy. It’s crazy. It was a burden on me. You don’t want to wish that on nobody. My mind was just out of it.”
Even for coaches and teammates, people who weren’t connected to Johnson in the same deep way, it was jarring, not just because a teammate was shaken, but because of how routine the circumstances surrounding it were — a team returning to the court after a timeout, the same thing many Pitt players have done together countless times. In an instant, that normalcy was shattered for Florida, leaving other teams to wonder what it might be like if it happened to them.
“That’s a parent’s worst nightmare, it’s a coach’s worst nightmare and a teammate’s worst nightmare,” Capel said.
Johnson’s time inside the hospital has been a source of intense interest. His grandfather told USA Today on Monday that Johnson was in a medically induced coma, though the school said later in the day that he was in critical but stable condition and was able to follow simple commands. By Tuesday, he was breathing on his own and had been transferred to a hospital in Gainesville, where Florida’s campus is located. On Thursday, the school provided its most recent update, noting that Johnson “continues to show truly encouraging signs of progress as he undergoes tests and further evaluation.”
Toney, connected in a way few others were, followed the events closely. Johnson’s mother FaceTimed with Toney on Sunday, informing him of everything going on and letting him know what the plan was moving forward. Later in the week, Toney got the chance to FaceTime with Johnson himself, who Toney said is “doing great now.”
“He’s up with his spirits,” Toney said. “He just wants to get back out and play.”
Compounding Johnson’s medical episode has been a report from the Associated Press that he, like many of his Florida teammates, tested positive for COVID-19 during the summer. It’s unclear, however, if Johnson’s condition is tied in any way to the coronavirus.
It adds murkiness to what has already been a draining season mentally and emotionally for many college basketball players, who are contending with feelings of isolation and uncertainty as they play their respective seasons during a global pandemic.
In that sense, Toney’s story is illuminating. You never truly know what someone else is going through and what kind of pain they might be harboring.
“These kids are going through a lot,” Capel said Monday. “They are. They are going through a lot, and what happened to one of their contemporaries on Saturday, it scared them.”
