The NCAA tournament is a cruel mistress and this time she kicked the Dawgs out of bed with their baby arm still at full mast. Which is to say, the Dawgs were bounced before they were ready.
After a dominant performance against a streaking Mississippi State team in the first round of the tournament The Huskies were looking like the team I thought could have a solid tournament run. In their second round opponent, Purdue, UW was poised to answer the question of which conference was worse, The Big 10 or the Pac-10. The results would move Seattle sports fans a step closer to the edge.
Here's the thing about the match-up against Purdue, they were not your typical #5 seed. A top 20 team most of the season, The Boilermakers slipped down the stretch due to back to back losses stemming from the back injury of their star forward Robbie Hummel. When Hummel finally came back and was healthy the Boilermakers plowed through the Big 10 tournament like Dante Stallworth's Bentley through pedestrians.
While Gonzaga was playing the likes of Akron and Western Kentucky, The Huskies faced their second winner of a conference tournament. Like I said in an earlier post, fuck you very much, NCAA selection committee.
Perhaps I should have added a third key to UW's post-season success which would be "start the game strong". In the near loss to Stanford and aborted comeback attempt vs Arizona State in the Pac-10 tourney the Dawgs came out slow. They managed to pull out a win against Stanford. Against ASU they weren't so lucky.
Facing Purdue to the right to play UConn in the next round, The Huskies came out flatter than Anne Coulter but played with none of the balls she posesses. UW's normally fast up and down pace turned frantic as players threw up shots with a hurried futility. The defense wasn't much better. The few times a Purdue player shot with a hand in their face they cooly knocked it down. All this lead to The Huskies being lucky to be down only 11 at the break. In the end, this deficit was too much to overcome.
The second half dangled the promise of a win so tantalizingly close to Dawg fans' faces we could practically taste it. John Brockman, dormant in the first half, blew up like Mt. St.Helens. He used to his bulk and low post prowess to become an unstoppable force. Isaiah Thomas realized that Purdue didn't have a defender that could hope to guard him on the perimeter and drove to the basket at will. Their combined efforts pulled The Dawgs back within two with seconds left but a couple blocked shots and a missed lay-in later the Huskies hopes were left beaten down like Rihanna on Grammy night. The long and crazy ride of the season had stopped and the fans were left wondering, what's next?
After a pounding a few drinks to numb the pain of the loss I tried to rationalize my feelings. "Well," I told my friends "at the start of this season who woulda thought we woulda made it this far? Cheers to that!" We clinked our plastic cups as we stood on the emptying floor of the casino's viewing area and gulped down our drinks. But the words, despite their truth, rang hollow at that moment. Our team just took us on an emotionally draining journey and we were now coming down from that basketball high. With nothing to pick up our spirits for weeks or maybe even months we could feel ourselves slipping back into Seattle Sports Malaise, dreaming of what could have been. Someone call 911, I think I'm gonna jump.
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