Sunday, March 20, 2011

Spartan basketball: a postscript and postmortem

The Spartans bowed out in the first round of the NCAA tournament with a performance that was befitting of their entire season. They started off incredibly sluggish and throughout the first half and most of the second half were getting blown off the court by the UCLA Bruins. Then, when it appeared they were completely dead--down by 23 with a little more than eight minutes left--MSU made a furious comeback and and made us all dare to dream that maybe, just maybe, they could walk off the court with a most improbable victory. But, much like the season, they dug too big a hole to successfully climb out--and lost by two points.

Thus ends one of the most disappointing MSU basketball seasons in many years. I can tell you that most MSU fans don't quite know how to take it. We've gotten just a wee bit spoiled around here and aren't accustomed to disappointment.

We're certainly not used to losing to our archrivals in Ann Arbor not just once, but TWICE, in the same season. (I'm still hurting over that). We're not used to wondering if our team will even make the NCAA tournament, and there were many nervous days late in the season where it appeared that the Spartans might be NIT-bound.

We as fans have to be realistic. We've had it really good for a long time and a less-than-stellar season was inevitable at some point. Lots of other schools would be thrilled to have the season we had in 2010-2011. (Northwestern, I'm looking at you).

So it's time for us to lick our wounds and look forward to (hopefully) better times in 2011-2012.

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