March 26, 2006
take your pick
Which team's season would you rather have?
Team A: You feel cheated for most of the season. Your favorite basketball team never really seems to mesh well, forcing you to pick last-minute wins over Manhattan and Rutgers as the top moments of the regular season. One of the most popular players of all time - the starting senior point guard - has a difficult, if individually productive, season. You feel sorry for him, but realize that your team just might not have what it takes to win games in a top-notch league. Going into the conference tournament, your hopes are extremely low as you expect to be bounced quickly into NIT competition.
The tournament arrives a few days after an attendance record setting home loss to Villanova. You figure that the time has come to just get it over with. Then, out of nowhere, the eight regulars come together as one unit and play their best basketball of the season for four days straight with much of the nation watching on TV. You beat the #1 ranked team in the country. Your team's senior point guard creates the best pre-tournament storyline of the year, turning critics who called him "The Most Overrated Player" into fools by throwing daggers in clutch situations, winning three games by doing so. Your Hall of Fame coach swears on TV. You get to see your team celebrate on the floor of Madison Square Garden, not only sharing hugs with each other but with your program's most familiar historical figures as well.
The city surrounding the school goes crazy for a week, giving t-shirt designers a chance to cash-in and bloggers an opportunity to wax poetic about the great value of sports. Man or woman, young or old - everyone's suddenly having a good time together because of your inspiring team. All in all, it's the most enjoyable event since the university's students and its local fans had a chance to bond over some bonfires and broken saplings.
Then, it all comes screeching to a halt with an ugly upset in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Nothing goes right. A feisty, defensive-minded Texas A&M team gives the bracket its necessary second 12-over-5 upset, just as it's stated in the tournament rulebook. The worst part comes when the famed senior point guard blames himself for the loss. The entire city goes into a funk, many fans expressing their frustration through boycotts of any more basketball, noting that the early exit hurts even more the second time around. You have to wait until November to watch your team again, and you feel as if someone's stolen all the celebratory feelings right out from under you. Yes, you won the conference tournament, but was it really meaningful enough? Ugh.
OR:
Team B: Your squad has the most talent in the nation, and everyone knows it. Each of the starting five will play in the NBA, not to mention the subs off the bench. Your team finishes the regular season at the top of the deepest conference of all time, full of confidence and swagger. You can't be beaten. Then, a bunch of overachievers from the snowbelt steal your thunder in New York City. Your own Hall of Fame coach fails to make the press reels, though he's voted "Coach I'd Least Want to Play For" by the players in your league. You leave Madison Square Garden somewhat upset, but buoyed by the notion that you'll enter the NCAA Tournament as a #1 seed, the favorite to take home the championship trophy.
Then a week later the #16-seeded Albany Great Danes have all spectators on the edge of their seats as they expose your team to be lazy and overconfident. Albany holds a double-digit lead well into the second half and fans everywhere text-message each other, cheering for you to lose (though most of them would suffer financial catastrophe by doing so). Your squad manages to pull away in the end, but the damage has already been done: every team preparing to face you now knows that you're actually very beatable.
Two days later, your team barely holds off an underachieving #8-seed, demonstrating a lack of heart and desire to win. Fans of the program become nervous, because they see the same thing as everyone else: your team is incapable of caring enough to play to its potential. Throughout the week that follows, several papers and magazines publish stories about how your squad was lucky to get through the opening rounds, but should be encouraged anyway because the team showed "they can win even though they aren't playing well."
The second weekend of the tournament goes much like the first. Down by 4 points to the Washington Huskies of the lowly Pac-10 with 0:20 to play, it takes monumental mistakes from the opposition and a near-miracle three pointer to force overtime. Unlike the shots made by the famed senior from Team A, which prompted descriptions such as "Magical!" or "Overrated!?" this shot was greeted with exciting pronouncements like "Survive!" and "Close-Call!" Yes, your team wins the game, but yet again they do so with the smallest doses of heart and desire. Good thing they only have to play a Cinderella #11-seed to win the region and move on to the Final Four, right?
Oops. Your team lays an egg in the regional final against George Mason of the Colonial Athletic Association. The team is up nine at halftime, but somehow they still manage to blow the lead down the stretch. A different senior steps in to force overtime in this game, but the Patriots end up proving that heart with hustle eventually wins over talent with listlessness. As a #1 seed and the undisputed favorite to win it all, the fans characterize the season as a failure. You feel personally embarrassed by the lack of effort in the second half against a clearly less-athletic lineup. You believe your players have no significant motivation to win, and your team has suddenly become the victim of the greatest upset in the history of the NCAA Tournament. The end of the season leaves you without any sense of satisfaction or enjoyment. You cry into your cereal each morning for a full week after the loss.
I'll take my team any day. Go Cuse.
