UPDATE: After this story was written, the NCAA announced that it was cancelling all spring championships, hence the 2020 College World Series will not be played

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Georgia baseball coach Scott Stricklin had trouble finding the right words to describe his feelings after learning that his Bulldogs, along with the other 13 teams in the SEC, were having their seasons suspended until March 30 following an announcement Thursday by the league office.

“I’m kind of numb right now. I just got done addressing the team on the bus. Word had kind of leaked out and I had found out about 30 minutes ago,” Stricklin said in a telephone interview with UGASports. “We had stopped to eat so we were spread out at different restaurants when I got the call.

I waited to address everybody at once, but word had started to leak out so they kind of knew when I told them. But right now, they are really numb, we just don’t know what the next step is.”

After announcing earlier that the men’s basketball tournament was being postponed due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19), the SEC office in Birmingham shortly thereafter sent out another edict that all regular-season games would be postponed until March 30, at which time the league will re-evaluate the current situation.

According to Stricklin, the team had left Statesboro at 10 a.m. ET Thursday and had stopped in Brunswick for lunch on its way to Gainesville for a series against top-ranked Florida when word finally came down.

“They’re asking questions. I had questions like what about our mid-week games, what about practice. The games are canceled, everything is canceled until March 30, suspended is the word that we’re using and as of right now school is still in session, so, we’ll probably be just working out and practicing until we’re told differently,” Stricklin said. “Right now, the only thing we can control is how we react to it. There’s nothing that we can say or do to change anything. We’re just making sure we’re following what we’re told and moving on.”

With classes set to resume Monday, the team will be allowed to continue practicing until, hopefully, the season is able to resume after March 30. The Bulldogs are slated to host Georgia State on March 31 before resuming SEC Play at Texas A&M on April 3.

“We’ve got quite a few seniors on this team, and a couple of guys who decided to come back for their senior year and now certainly this has changed everything for them,” Stricklin said. “You’ve also got the uncertainty with the professional draft, there’s just so many questions we don’t know … it’s a little too much to process right now. My head is still kind of spinning right now, so I don’t really know. We just turned the bus around and heading north.”

Although the league will continue to re-evaluate the situation daily leading up to March 30, Stricklin admits he’s worried the decision to suspend play could push past that date.

“I’m definitely concerned. We don’t know, that’s the thing. There’s a lot of shoulder shrugging going on right now. We don’t know,” Stricklin said. “The hope is that within a week or two things start to settle down and get back to normal but it’s just unknown right now and that’s the thing that scares everybody. We just don’t know. Certainly, all of our lives are changing really quickly.”