Thursday, January 31, 2008

The Beasts of the East

UConn's student lottery determines who gets season tickets and which seats they get - consequently, at the Monday night men's basketball game against Louisville I found myself sitting three rows from the ceiling, essentially hanging from the rafters. The term 'nosebleed section' seems a little outdated - I've sat in many upper rows and never seen an outbreak of nasal hemorrhaging - but if you took one faulty step at this height, a nosebleed would have been the least of your worries. The school's seven national championship banners were hanging straight ahead of me, a sobering reminder of our programs' past successes in comparison to the men's recent struggles.
I’m probably being a bit melodramatic. It’s been less than two years since UConn was in the Sweet Sixteen with their sights locked in on a title. But that round’s crushing loss to George Mason sent the program into a vicious downward spiral. It was one of the biggest upsets in recent men’s basketball history. A scarily talented team that seemed a lock for the finals was knocked off by a mid-major. That just doesn’t happen, and coupled with the loss of the Huskies' top six players, it left them as shell-shocked as a man having his house robbed immediately followed by his wife leaving him.

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