A five-year climb through the ranks of European professional basketball put DeAndre Lansdowne on another level. He was in Italy in the country’s top league, but at the apex of the season he had worked toward since 2011, it all came to a screeching halt as the COVID-19 pandemic swept through Italy at an alarming rate.

Playing on a one-year contract in the Lega Basket Series A (LBA) with the team Basket Brescia Leonessa of Brescia, Italy, the 30-year-old Lansdowne would get his first opportunity to play in the international EuroCup, a goal he had worked toward since he first moved to play in Europe in 2015.

But six days after his team lost a single-elimination EuroCup tournament game, basketball and sports across the world were shutdown. The country was placed on lockdown as the novel coronavirus pandemic hit Italy with fury.

“It moved like crazy,” Lansdowne said. “Feb. 8, we had our Italian Cup, the mid-season tournament of the top-eight teams. We lost in the first round, so I went to Rome and Florence and came back ready to practice for our next games three weeks later. We were supposed to play an away game, but then it got canceled a day before. Then we had a EuroCup game against another Italian team, and we played with no fans. It was a very, very weird situation.

“We went back to practice thinking we were going to play again, and then things ended indefinitely.”

Lansdowne, who is from Albuquerque, would be in lockdown in Italy until he could return March 24 to the U.S. He was able to go to his team facility to work out for two hours a day and was joined by two or three of the other American players each day.

“Things got really crazy out there,” he said. “It got more serious, a lot more deaths, and the numbers would rise daily. Working out was the only highlight of the day. Everything was closed. It was a ghost town. Spending three weeks in a foreign country in quarantine, you can drive yourself crazy or break the law a little bit because you just gotta get out and do something different.”

Lansdowne wasn’t the only great from FLC to play at a high level in Europe this season. Among several others was Ignacio’s Alex Herrera, who was the starting center for Science City Jena in the ProA league in Germany this year.

“It hit DeAndre and them in Italy first. We were in touch a little bit, and I was following it closely,” Herrera said of the coronavirus situation. “All of a sudden, a week later, it hit us and the season was over. I thought we would have a couple of closed games or something, but as soon as it came to Germany, it shut down everything right away.”

The ProA season was canceled March 17. The 27-year-old Herrera has remained in Germany with his girlfriend and her family. He said he will likely return to the U.S. during the summer and visit Durango and Ignacio before going to see his family that now live in Washington.

“Here in Germany, you can go to essential stores but can’t be in groups of more than two people if you go out for a walk,” he said. “I’m doing what I can to work out and will sneak onto an outdoor court even though you’re not supposed to be out there. Other than that, it is bike riding and stuff like that to stay in shape.”

Lansdowne spent 32 hours traveling to get home. At the time, Italy had been the hardest-hit country in terms of coronavirus cases and deaths. Within a week after he returned, the U.S. had surpassed Italy’s count. Lansdowne couldn’t believe the differences he saw in his home country versus the precautions he saw in place across Europe.

“Essential for Italy is different than Americans. The only things open there were banks, pharmacies and the grocery store, and they were only letting 10 or 15 people in at a time and less than that at pharmacies and banks,” said Lansdowne, who noted there was no toilet paper shortage in Italy and no cases of people fighting in grocery stores for supplies. “When I came from Rome to (John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York, it was really different. I thought, ‘America, you’re in for it. You have no idea what’s about to hit you.’ New York was obviously hit hard, and I could see exactly why. There was no social distancing at the airport at that time. Nobody was using a mask or gloves. There’s a reason why that spread exactly the way it spread.”

Lansdowne, who starred for FLC from 2007-11 with a program record 1,861 points, was frustrated reading reports of Serie A league basketball considering plans to resume the 2019-20 season. The idea of resuming the season in May or June didn’t seem practical. He also didn’t trust all players and coaches would receive COVID-19 testing before returning to practice or games.

So, he was relieved when Serie A made the announcement March 28 to cancel the season. He’s happy to be back home in New Mexico and is eager for a trip to Durango.

“It’s a sad time that the season had to end and now we have this really long break,” Lansdowne said. “I wanted to get back home but leave Italy without burning bridges. Some players were not getting permission from the team or telling them and just left because they panicked. I got permission to come back home.

“I knew it could get bad here in America, but I didn’t want to be locked down in a foreign country and be unsure of when I would be allowed to come back home as it gets worse and worse. I wanted to be back to my base during this time. Seeing it get bad here, I was OK with that and prepared for it because I had already dealt with it in Italy and was able to bring back some things and help some people see it wasn’t to be taken lightly. I was able to express to those around me that, hey, this is a serious situation and needs to be taken seriously. If you are smart about what you do, you can avoid getting this.”

Herrera, a 6-foot-9 center, averaged 11.7 points and 7.2 rebounds per game for a team third in the league standings at 18-9 overall. The career-record holder at FLC for blocked shots and made free throws had shot 58% from the field and blocked 32 shots in 26 games while he averaged 24.4 minutes per game. He recored double-doubles of points and rebounds seven times, headlined by a 27-point, 10-rebound effort Feb. 15 against Kirchheim and an 18 and 18 night Jan. 3 against Trier.

“I was feeling good. I had a bit of a different role with this team, and I had goals of moving up to the first league,” Herrera said. “I enjoyed it a lot. I kept improving and felt healthy. It just hurts the way it all went down. We were on a streak coming into the playoffs and had our head coach back who had taken a month and a half off for his own health reasons. We felt good going into the playoffs, but the rug was taken out from under us.”

Herrera’s contract was guaranteed for one season and a second if his team finished high enough in the standings to move up into Germany’s top tier – Basketball Bundesliga – next season. Now, it’s all uncertain.

“With the league ending where it did with us in third place, we don’t have a bid to go up to the first league,” Herrera said. “We are still kind of waiting to see if we get a wild-card bid into it or not. So, we will see where it goes.”

Brescia performed well in Serie A with a 14-7 record to sit third in the standings

Lansdowne came off the bench as a shooting guard and averaged 27 minutes per game in a solid role for the Lions.

In 21 Serie A games, Lansdowne averaged 13.3 points, three rebounds, 1.6 assists and one steal per game. He scored a season-high 25 points on 8-of-15 shooting, including 6-of-10 from 3-point range, on Jan. 19 against Milano. His last Serie A game was played Feb. 9 in a two-point win against Trieste in which he scored 12 points.

In EuroCup action, Lansdowne averaged 10.2 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists and one steal per game. He scored 21 points in 27 minutes in his EuroCup debut against Russian club Unics on Oct. 2, 2019.

Lansdowne’s numbers took a slight dip from a year earlier when he played at the top-tier of Germany for Braunschweig. The 6-foot-2, 193-pound guard had averaged 18.6 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game.

Determined to adjust to the different play in Italy, the savvy veteran had doubled down on his already sterling work ethic that took him from out of the game after his playing days at FLC to the pro ranks in Mexico and, eventually, to one of Europe’s elite levels.

“It was a completely different year. I loved it and hated it, but not in a bad way,” Lansdowne said. “Playing in a different country meant everything was different, from basketball to the food, people and language. It’s a lot of stress. Our team was 11 or 12 guys deep. Games I didn’t perform, I sat on the bench. It was an amazing growth experience.

“I had a couple of talks with coach when there were times I felt I was inconsistent, but he told me to remember I was on another level learning a whole new team, coaching staff, country, team management and league. The high expectations I hold of myself, I couldn’t bring myself down because I wasn’t scoring 20 points a game. This year, it became not about how many points I could put in the basket but how I could contribute to the team depending on each matchup.”

He said playing a game with no fans was one of the weirdest experiences of his career.

“There were announcers, some stadium workers and the fire department. That’s it,” he said. “The building janitor was sitting VIP, and he loved it. Other than that, it was only the owners and people who worked for the team who were allowed in the gym. It was silent, and it was hard for the referees with no fans and no emotion, too. They could hear all of us bad-mouthing them about every call, and they were at our benches talking a lot. That is normal, but usually we just don’t hear it. It was crazy.”

Now, all Lansdowne can do is workout at home and try to shoot baskets whenever he can, a task made more difficult with all of the restrictions in place across Colorado and New Mexico surrounding coronavirus. He will worry about his next contract when the time is right.

“I probably won’t even talk about any type of new deal or money until later in the summer,” Lansdowne said. “We are not sure what countries are going to be economically damaged. Some teams can offer a good amount, but then what they pay is different than what they offered. The business is tough out there and not as blue skies as people assume.

“The No. 1 factor for me in previous years was wanting to play for a team that plays internationally or in one of the big countries. This time, it’s going to be about going where I can get a good number and know the team can actually follow through and pay on time consistently.”

Lansdowne will be 31 when, or if, next season starts. If there is a silver lining to a shortened season and perhaps a shorter 2020-21 season, it is that he hopes it will mean less wear and tear on his knees and joints.

“Being in my prime, yeah it sucks because you want to get as much as you can out of yourself when you’re up in age,” he said. “But I have to look at it like maybe this prolongs my career a year or two. You have to look for a positive.”

jlivingston@durangoherald.com