SWC75
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Karl Wallenda, the famous tight rope walker, insisted on performing without a net because he felt a net made it "OK to fall". He had a brother who fell into a net and flipped out of it onto a concrete floor and he felt safer if he knew it was not OK to fall and therefore he would use every faculty he had to stay up there.
But sports fans who are hoping their team can win a championship can have a net. It's not a matter of life or death. This is our week to dream of winning the title. Next week will be too late. But it's OK to step back and put the situation in some perspective as well so you won't feel quite as much pain if things go poorly. He's an E-mail response I just sent to a friend asking for my assessment of SU's prospects this weekend:
I’m so confident that they will get to the title game I’m kind of scared of it. JB is 9-0 all-time vs. Beilein and 3-0 in national semi-finals. Michigan seems a clone of Indiana. I think they will have similar trouble scoring against us and equal trouble defending against our “longer” players. Our offensive efficiency has actually been pretty good in the tournament if you look at points per possession. The games are just slow games because the opposition is using up the shot clock trying to find a hole in the zone and we are being patient as well, looking at openings for our drives to the basket. MCW has been playing at an All-American level, as has CJ Fair. The centers have hung tough. Even Southerland is playing defense and rebounding. He really hasn’t “gone off” yet in this tournament as he did in new York because the other teams are making sure someone is in his face all the time.
We’ll have the best shot vs. Louisville of anybody because we’ve played them three times and, aside for the final 10 minutes in new York, it’s been very close. That game was our fourth in 4 days. The title game would be our second game in 8 days. And I think they will miss Kevin Ware, their #3 guard, who hurt us a lot. They could even be vulnerable vs. Wichita State, who has beaten several teams they weren’t supposed to beat.
But it’s kind of like the TV mystery show where all the evidence points to a suspect and the hero says it’s took perfect: it’s a frame-up! Our seasons tend to end before we thought there were going to end. Confrontations that we were looking forward to tend not to come off. And our games against Louisville tend to have unhappy endings.
I choose to step back and look at it from three different perspectives in the not too recent past: (1) we started the season having lost our point guard, out leading scorer, the conference defensive player of the year and the #4 overall NBA draft choice, (four different guys). (2) We ended the regular season with a dismal 39-61 loss at Georgetown, our 5th loss in 7 games. (3) We finished the Big East tournament on a 16-49 run vs. Louisville. If at any of those points you were told that we would be in the Final Four, wouldn’t you have been amazed and happy? Maybe we should just be amazed and happy whatever takes place.
But sports fans who are hoping their team can win a championship can have a net. It's not a matter of life or death. This is our week to dream of winning the title. Next week will be too late. But it's OK to step back and put the situation in some perspective as well so you won't feel quite as much pain if things go poorly. He's an E-mail response I just sent to a friend asking for my assessment of SU's prospects this weekend:
I’m so confident that they will get to the title game I’m kind of scared of it. JB is 9-0 all-time vs. Beilein and 3-0 in national semi-finals. Michigan seems a clone of Indiana. I think they will have similar trouble scoring against us and equal trouble defending against our “longer” players. Our offensive efficiency has actually been pretty good in the tournament if you look at points per possession. The games are just slow games because the opposition is using up the shot clock trying to find a hole in the zone and we are being patient as well, looking at openings for our drives to the basket. MCW has been playing at an All-American level, as has CJ Fair. The centers have hung tough. Even Southerland is playing defense and rebounding. He really hasn’t “gone off” yet in this tournament as he did in new York because the other teams are making sure someone is in his face all the time.
We’ll have the best shot vs. Louisville of anybody because we’ve played them three times and, aside for the final 10 minutes in new York, it’s been very close. That game was our fourth in 4 days. The title game would be our second game in 8 days. And I think they will miss Kevin Ware, their #3 guard, who hurt us a lot. They could even be vulnerable vs. Wichita State, who has beaten several teams they weren’t supposed to beat.
But it’s kind of like the TV mystery show where all the evidence points to a suspect and the hero says it’s took perfect: it’s a frame-up! Our seasons tend to end before we thought there were going to end. Confrontations that we were looking forward to tend not to come off. And our games against Louisville tend to have unhappy endings.
I choose to step back and look at it from three different perspectives in the not too recent past: (1) we started the season having lost our point guard, out leading scorer, the conference defensive player of the year and the #4 overall NBA draft choice, (four different guys). (2) We ended the regular season with a dismal 39-61 loss at Georgetown, our 5th loss in 7 games. (3) We finished the Big East tournament on a 16-49 run vs. Louisville. If at any of those points you were told that we would be in the Final Four, wouldn’t you have been amazed and happy? Maybe we should just be amazed and happy whatever takes place.
