WISCONSIN (SPECTRUM NEWS) -- Former Marquette basketball star Travis Diener was playing professionally in Italy when the coronavirus pandemic started to spread. In an interview for Spectrum News 1, Diener talked about that experience.

"Yeah it was a little surreal, you know. I felt like, especially when we left, it felt like every 12 to 24 hours there is more restrictions, more guidelines on what you're gonna do. So on our way home to the airport, it almost felt like we're the only people on the streets. You were restricted from even leaving your house or you risked getting fined or ticketed and you're only allowed to leave your house once a week to go to the grocery store. Only one person in your household could go."

Diener says that even though the pandemic has hit the United States hard, it's not as catastrophic as it was in Italy.

"I think in America, we're built better for it.

In Italy, what caused them a lot of heartache was hospitals got really over capacity to the point where they were choosing who to treat. I think we're better built for it. We haven't gotten to the point where we've run out of hospital beds or respirators."

Diener, who played at Marquette from 2001-2005, will be playing for the Marquette Alumni Team in The Basketball Tournament, scheduled under quarantine in Columbus, Ohio from July 4-14.

This is the fifth straight year that Marquette will field a team. They were the runner-up last year. Dan Fitzgerald is the General Manager and Joe Chapman serves as coach.

Diener treasures the chance to play and represent Marquette.

"It's very important that I get a chance to represent Marquette, on a smaller scale obviously, but it's something that I haven't done in in 15 years you know since I played at Marquette. So it's a wonderful experience joining players that I watched play after me, our head coach, the guy that I played three years at Marquette and then we have a lot of younger guys that I have had the opportunity to watch on TV as they have had professional careers. So for me, it just keeps me young and gives me a reason to stay in shape for the summer time and just get together with guys that have gone through similar experiences to myself."

The Marquette team will be seeded fourth and have a first-round bye in the event. Diener says no one should expect to see Dwyane Wade on the Marquette entry.

"I think we would have had a decent chance if it wasn't for this pandemic. I think with the restrictions, and you know you're going to be quarantined away for 12 and 14 days in a hotel in Columbus without being able to leave. My thinking, in a normal year, I think Dwyane would have seriously entertained playing, but I can't speak for him. There were brief conversations with him and that's kind of of what we gathered is, you know this pandemic and I think he would have flown in for the game then flew back out to California, but you know what this they're not going to allow that with with everything that's going on."