Recovering from two days travel and a small backlog of work and errands, plus Michigan State playing their first round tournament game, so I decided to wait until the afternoon for my daily blog post.
I’d get caught up, watch MSU move on to the second round, and be in a great mood to think of a topic for the blog.
Oops.
I got a lot done and caught up on work. MSU didn’t do their part.
So here I am, grumpy and forlorn, listless, unsure how to use this weekend and next since my plan was to enjoy beer and basketball. My bracket’s busted right along with my heart.
The worst part? MSU didn’t look bad. They played a decent all-around game. Not great, but not major upset oh-my-gosh-how’d-they-choke bad. Middle Tennessee State just played an exceptional game in all facets. Yes, they got hot shooting. Yes, every loose ball seemed to bounce their way. But they also drove hard to the rim. They got offensive boards. They played as even-keeled a game I’ve seen, despite MSU runs.
There’s no easy scapegoat. Two teams played a good game and one team played better. It’s just that it was the vastly inferior team that played better!
Sigh. My wife tells me not to emotionally invest so much in my sports teams. But that’s the whole point! It’s no delightful escape if I’m real-world-rational about it.
I’ve got nothing else to say. Go listen to this podcast episode about why sports are great and then go check out MSU’s all-time tournament record. Maybe that will lift your spirits like it does mine.
I’ll probably regress to the guy who just roots against Duke and UNC from here on out. Oh, and go Middle Tennessee State! Maybe they’ll win it all and make MSU look relatively less disappointing.
Now leave me alone to wallow.