05 April 2005

Morose

That is the only word to describe how I feel this morning.

I got up at the usual time.

Had my usual three cups of coffee.

Read the paper.

But, no matter how hard I went to my usual routine to invoke my version of normal, the loss of my beloved Fighting Illini last night stills hangs in the air like a fine mist coming off of a fog rolling in to blanket my day in darkness.

I feel ill when I think about all of the naysayers coming back to the forefront. Now that the bandwagon has abruptly come to a screeching halt, time to jump off. I can hear it now, the endless “I-told-you-so’s” assaulting me like the massive raindrops of the first spring thunderstorm. Eventually this will storm will spawn a whirlwind of comments ranging from “they were good, but, not good enough” and “they didn’t have what it took down the stretch” and “good team, but the talent wasn’t good enough”, ad nauseum.

And, although I still think Jay Mariotti is a moron, and the King of all Naysayers, he does make a good point in his column today – “Sports archivists tend to remember only the champs, not the runners-up.” Forget the fact that Illinois had a 37-2 record on the season, tying only a few other clubs to reach that mark, or came back from a double-digit deficit to win a game in the Elite Eight that may be remembered as a tourney classic. Only one team can win. Unfortunately, it was a team with a bunch of punk kids with attitude and leaps, who ousted their last coach, went 8 - 20 in their first season with the new coach.