Growing up a sports fan in Connecticut can be a difficult thing. Wedged between Boston and New York and having no pro team to call our own (sorry to all you Connecticut Sun fans out there), finding a team that you are going to want to pour your heart and soul into can be a tough task. Ever since the Whalers jumped ship and moved to Carolina, this state has been searching for its athletic identity. After Saturday night’s win against the Duke Blue Devils, who shall be referred to in the rest of this column as “The Losers,” the University of Connecticut Huskies firmly cemented their place in the upper echelon of men’s college basketball. So for all you fans out there looking for a team to get behind, I beckon you to look no further than within your state’s boundaries, to focus your fanatical gaze northwards to Storrs and rally behind the best thing this state has had to offer since A. Bronson Alcott.
There were a few observations made during the game on Saturday that I feel need mentioning, and unfortunately, I can’t take credit for all of these. Track and Field superstar Gwe Crawford ’04 mentioned was that what makes college basketball great, among other things, is that no matter what team is playing, whether it be UConn, or The Losers, or Murray State, there are always three or four awkward looking white guys at the end of the bench who never, ever come close to taking their warm-ups off. These guys know there is no chance on God’s green earth that they will see any playing time whatsoever and yet, they consistently are the ones most pumped up at the end of close games. To be one of those guys is the equivalent of being the bullpen catcher in pro baseball. They travel with the team, reap all the benefits of being part of a team, and all they have to do is practice a couple hours a day and do the starting five’s homework. It is a win-win situation for everyone.
Something that has puzzled me for a while now is the phenomenon known as “Band members painting their faces.” I have no problem with enthusiastic fans ceremoniously painting their faces in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of the opponents, but if you’re in the band that plays for a team, there is absolutely no reason for you to wear face paint. First of all, it is complete overkill. Everyone knows that you support your team, from your entire wardrobe sporting the logo of your school and by the fact that your existence is to play music for a team that probably doesn’t know the name of 1% of the band members. College band members need to understand that being part of a band does nothing to affect the outcome of the game. I’m not anti-band by any stretch of the imagination, but I just get the sense that band members take themselves a little too seriously.
Another thing that bothers me about college basketball and sports in general is the persistence of coaches and players using the notion of “not getting respect” as a motivational tool. How many times over the course of this year’s tournament have we heard a line similar to this, “Nobody thought that we would be in this position right now?” What irks me is that players from teams like Georgia Tech are saying this. Here is a team that won the preseason National Invitation Tournament handily, beat The Losers at the Losers home court and had a successful season in arguably the most competitive conference in college basketball. Also, outside of the game against Oklahoma State, they had yet to play a higher seed. Come now, Yellow Jackets, don’t play the public like idiots. Thousands of people across this great nation picked you to be right where you are. Motivation and confidence are things that a team should not be lacking going into the championship game. This unnecessary playing of the “us against the world” card gets a team nowhere. In fact, Georgia Tech should be the favorites going into the final game, seeing as how they demolished the Huskies earlier in the year.
Yet, they will not be the favorites and for good reason. Unfortunately for all the Yellow Jacket fans in the world, there is absolutely no chance that they are going to beat UConn again. UConn played its worst half of basketball in a long time against the Losers in the first half of Saturday’s game and were still able to grind out a victory. There is no way they will play that bad again. Also, Georgia Tech just doesn’t match up well against the boys from Storrs. Anybody who says otherwise is either A) a devout Tech fan or B) a disillusioned sports writer who wants to be different from all the other competent writers and pick Tech just so that he/she can rub it in the face of America afterwards. Because it wouldn’t make sense to offer a prediction on a game that has already taken place and I’m in a predicting mood, I will offer this prediction instead, one that has absolutely no relevance to anything else in this column: the Yankees will win the World Series. Boyar! Take that, Boston.
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