Tag: IU basketball

I wonder if there’s Grant Money available for this type of research

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I found myself in a very interesting situation over the weekend. I went to the Derby Festival Classic in Knight’s Hall Friday night and Freedom Hall Saturday night where the crowd was distributed in roughly the same ratios as Steve Martin’s financial disclosure.

Manager and Agent 30-35% Kentucky Fans
Road Expenses 10-20% Louisville Fans
Development of New Material .00001% Indiana Fans

I didn’t have time to put this in the Rubber Chicken graph that Steve used, but hopefully this will suffice.

Needless to say, I was out numbered and as I walked through the concourse this one thought kept running through my head. “I wonder how many of these people know that I hate them?”

I was surrounded by blue, but rather than feeling intimidated or uncomfortable, I felt excited. A lot of that feeling goes back to my feelings about the Calipari hire, but just as much of it had to do with the excitement of getting to see three of our prize recruits in action against the maybes that make up their recruiting class.

But before I get into how Creek, Hulls and Watford looked on the court I have a couple of UK fan encounters to share.

On Friday night at the Let Us Never Speak of the Dunk Contest Again event as each player was introduced, they ran out onto the floor with a T-shirt to throw out into the crowd. Good Clean Fun.

When Stephan Van Treese, a U of L signee, three his shirt into the crowd it was caught by a UK fan in the first row who immediately threw the shirt all the way across the court and then stepped out onto the court with his arms raised parallel to the floor and his hat turned sideways claiming some sort of victory in a war only he was fighting. In less than 5 minutes I got most accurate picture of a UK fan in his natural habitat, acting in the only way that comes naturally to him, like a total douchebag. I felt the thrill of discovery that Jane Goodall must have felt upon her first encounter with the chimpanzee, of seeing a creature so nearly human in its natural environment.

The second, and equally telling encounter I had with the UK fan was in the men’s room. I was at the urinal closest to the sinks and the UK fan two urinals to my left finished his business, and after not flushing the toilet, walked behind me, toward the sinks and the door that was just past them. I saw him in the mirrors over the sinks pause, look over at the sinks, extend his left hand and wave them off as if they were a waiter offering a refill of coffee that he didn’t particularly like and wanted no part of. He then continued out the door presumably smelling of his own urine.

You stay Classy, Lexington.

More about the actual game later.

Pimp my database

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Well, so much for the Packer Method. At least as it concerns IU basketball. The Indianapolis Star went live today with the adorable love child of an IU basketball fan and an actuary.

The Indianapolis Star has launched the IU Basketball Database. It’s not complete yet, as they don’t have individual box scores up yet, but that, apparently, is in the works.

I’m not usually in the business of pimping other people’s IU stuff, but this seemed worth passing on.

Who’s that little old man?

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The following is an excerpt from a review of The Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience.

It was clear from the outset that “A Hard Day’s Night” “The Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience” was in a different category from the rock musicals that had starred Elvis and his imitators. It was smart, it was irreverent, it didn’t take itself seriously, and it was shot and edited by Richard Lester Bruce Hendricks in an electrifying black-and-white 3D, semi-documentary style that seemed to follow the boys during a day in their lives. And it was charged with the personalities of the Beatles Jonas Brothers, whose one-liners dismissed the very process of stardom they were undergoing. “Are you a mod or a rocker?” Ringo The cute Jonas Brother is asked at a press conference. “I’m a mocker,” he says.

I have spent much of this season trying to put a Beatles spin on a Jonas Brothers movie. That’s not very helpful. If you’re going to watch the Jonas Brothers movie, you should be prepared for it. It doesn’t help all that much, just like it doesn’t make it hurt less if you are told in advance about the groin shot you’re about to take, but it’s only right that you know what you’re in for.

But sitting back and saying, “This is pretty much the worst video ever made” doesn’t help either because as Kip points out, “like anyone can even know that.”

So, with a level head I will procede with the actual good. The actual bad is far too easy to point out, so I’m ignoring it for today.

It may not need to be said, but Verdell Jones III has made huge strides this season. A month ago I wouldn’t have given him much chance of serious playing time next year, but he has clearly gotten stronger and has a much better sense of what he needs to do with the ball. Shiney bright spot number one.

Nick Williams has had a quietly good season. He hasn’t made the visible strides that VJIII has made, but he’s definitely improved. I’m basing this off nothing more than my memory of the beginning of the year, but I don’t think he had as far to come. He wasn’t making the kind of mistakes VJIII was making and wasn’t getting tossed around quite as much. He is and will be a great asset to this team when he pulls up for mid range jump shots. 12-15 and he’s golden. Inside or outside of that and I’m not thrilled with his shot selection, but if we can get him the ball around the free throw line in the heart of a 2-3 he can really carve it up.

Tom Crean has done a remarkable job game planning this year. It seems like every move he’s made this year, from a strategic stand-point has been the right one. The switching defenses, the decision to go box and one or triangle and two have been hard to prepare for and have kept us in a lot of games. This kids didn’t know how to win at this level. They still don’t, but to have them in so many games against some very good teams, speaks volumes to Crean’s preparation and game planning. We played Michigan State down to the wire and they’re a very possible Final Four team this year.

Tom Crean has also done a tremendous job keeping the spirits of this team up, but even more amazing than that, he’s been able to put on a brave face in front of the cameras. He has never let it slip how hard this has been for him in public where the team could see it. This is killing him inside. How could it not? But he has sounded the right note to keep his team from hanging its collective head all season.

I’m not ready to start talking about next year yet. Give me a week and that’s all I’ll be thinking about, but for right now we’ve got Penn State on Thursday in a winnable game. If we can play MSU tight like that, there’s no reason we can’t beat Penn State. I don’t think we’re going to need anymore Inspire Indiana trivia questions than the ones that have already been written, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see us playing on Friday.

I assure I’ve never once listened to this song. Tell me how bad it is.

This on the other hand is great. I’ve been to Marlybone Station where this was filmed and as an aside, if you run down the street they ran down at the beginning and turn left as they did you will actually be running away from the station, not across the street towards it.

I’m about to go all Howard Beal up in this place.

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Something important happened in the Big Ten Tournament game against Minnesota last year. When Hoffarber hit that shot at the buzzer it meant something. It wasn’t as important as a mountain sculpted out of a mashed potatoes, but it meant something none-the-less.

A part of me went to sleep. It was the part of me that expects us to win basketball games and I didn’t realize it was asleep until sometime this weekend when it woke up.

I read a story recently, or maybe it was a blog post, I looked but I can’t seem to find it, about how the students on campus have been really supportive of the players. Telling them how much the appreciate their effort and that they know the team is working really hard. The article said that Nick Williams had gotten to the point where he hated hearing that. He appreciated the support but was so sick of losing, the ata-boys for the effort kind of stung after a while.

I have gone through this season feeling, not exactly good about our losses, but understanding of them and trying to see progress and improvement. It has left me feeling, for lack of a better word, grey. I don’t have the fire and passion for IU basketball this year. I haven’t missed a game, but going into pretty every game ready for a loss has definitely dampened my fire.

I’ve been sleepwalking through this season to protect myself from how bad this should hurt, and to keep myself from being disproportionally harsh on these guys.

I think I’ve done us all a disservice.

I’m done being OK with incremental progress and close losses. We should have won some of these games. We have lost five games by fewer than five points. I want half of those to be wins. It’s not OK that we lost all of them.

It’s not OK that we keep turning the ball over 15+ times a game.

Winning the rebounding battle in almost every game while losing 17 out of 18 games is not good enough.

I’m not giving up on these guys, or piling on. I’m expecting them to start playing like Hoosiers. I know it’s what Coach Crean expects of them. I know it’s what they expect of themselves. We aren’t helping them by expecting less from them.

I haven’t yelled at any of these guys half as much as I yelled at Todd Lindeman, Jordan Crawford or Robert Vaden and they’ve certainly earned a few “Damn it, Verdell!”‘s.

I had seats in the family section a few years ago at the Big Ten Tournament. I’m pretty sure this was 2001 as it was the year that Haston blocked that shot at the end of the Illinois game to put us in the finals. At one point Kyle Hornsby (my memory is fuzzy here, but I’m pretty sure it was Kyle) threw a bad pass for a turnover. I yelled something about it being a really dumb pass. Someone leaned over to me and said, “That’s his mom two rows in front of you.”

To which I replied, “I don’t care. She knows it was a dumb pass.”

That’s the kind of IU fan I am. I expect a certain level of play and when they aren’t giving it, I get annoyed and vocal.

“So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,

‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!!'”

Demanding more of them will likely lead to greater upset when we do lose, but again, I don’t care. I can’t live this button down life anymore. I want it all. The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles.

I already feel better. Just changing my mindset from passive fatalist back to Indiana fan has awakened that part of me that Hoffarber put to sleep last March.

When you asked how I was doing, was that some kind of joke?

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I haven’t written much about basketball lately.

I’ve written about the fans, elbows, Buffy, Stripes, expectations, but very little about actual basketball.

I’m not sure my mom ever told me, “if you can’t find anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” But enough mom’s on TV have said it, so I think that counts. But it’s not really that I don’t have anything nice to say, because there are definitely some if not good, then less-bad aspects to our play recently, it’s more that it takes a lot longer to find those nice things to say than it does to find the flaws in our play and to this point I’ve been reticent to criticize this team too severely.

I’ve held back because I didn’t really think it was productive to kick them when they were down, but as George Wallace once said,

“segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever?”

Not THAT George Wallace. George Wallace, the comedian. As he once said, “Can you tell me a better time to kick a man? Your foot is just that much closer to their head.”

I also held back because, despite my belief prior to the season that we could be a team that was fighting to be close to .500, I had come to realize just how far this team had to come to get back to where we would like them to be and we weren’t going to get there this year. So, in effect, why bother taking a shit on this team.

But after they quit against Northwestern, I’m kind of done holding back.

I have been a glass half full type of IU fan this season. Giving credit for effort and trying very hard to mark our improvement on a separate sheet from the one I use for our wins and losses. And, as I view this entire season as part one of a much longer season, I’m still pretty optimistic, but I’m just tired.

I can’t take any more basketball like this. I thought we had a very good chance to beat Northwestern. I thought we had a decent chance of beating Wisconsin. But since we beat Iowa we’ve averaged 54 points per game while giving up 71 points per game. Our second halves have been terrible. And we still turn the ball over with roughly the same frequency that the Dude and Walter drop F-bombs.

We have five games left in this season and I, for one, will be happy to see it go. I am anxious to begin looking forward to next season with a fresh group of guys. I haven’t gone to watch IU recruits play since I was a little kid, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to do that this summer. I need to see that there is hope for us, because right now, for these last five games, hope is in short supply.

This is my theme song right now for IU basketball because

And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah’s great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Are we who you thought we were?

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Well, it’s been a year. Happy Anniversary everyone! I hope you can forgive the lateness of my card, coming as it does, two after our actual anniversary.

It was on February 22nd 2008 that Kelvin Sampson was finally no longer a going concern as IU basketball coach.

So, since it is our anniversary, it seems like a good time to take stock of where we are now, to look back over the last year and inch the door just that much closer to closed.

I’d rather not rehash everything that has happened over the last year. If you’re reading this, I’m working under the assumption that you know all of it. What I’d like to do is ask a question.

Are we where you thought we’d be? After one year of rebuilding, are we where you thought we’d be at this point in the season? Now’s a good time to be honest. If you are disappointed, pissed, hopeful, comforted, pleased shout it out. There are no wrong answers.

I’ll tell you what I think in a later post. I’d hate to skew the results one way or another. I do have an opinion, though I don’t guess that’s hard for you to imagine.

But, I’m curious about yours.

Are we where you thought we’d be? Why or why not? What did you expect? Better? Worse? More Kip Schutz?

Blown Up, Sir!

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I’m pretty sure I saw my uncle in the stands at the IU game against Wisconsin. It was right before the half and he was sitting on the left-hand side of the screen. He was on screen for a good five seconds, wearing this hideous yellow sweater and clapping.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t actually at the game. In fact, I don’t think he’s ever been to an IU game. The closest he’s ever come to an IU game was Fort Knox, KY.

Let me explain. In 1980, my uncle took his wife and three daughters with him to Fort Knox to watch a movie being filmed. They sat in the stands for three days, I think, and watched as a rag-tag group of Army misfits struggled their way through the graduation ceremony of their basic training course.

He ended up in the final cut of the film. You can’t miss him. Hideous yellow sweater, clapping.

Go ahead, check it out. It’s at the 1:13:36 mark of Stripes. It’s about halfway through the movie, and roughly one minute before the movie stops being good.

That’s why I’m fairly certain I saw him at the IU game just before halftime, wearing his yellow sweater and clapping. It was roughly one minute before we stopped being any good as well.

We are the Stripes of basketball teams. We start out strong and fun to watch, then about halfway through, we are put in charge of the EM50 project, Uncle Hulka returns, some of the team ends up imprisoned in Czecheslovakia and needs to be rescued by the rest of the team driving a heavily armed recreational vehicle.

The second half just doesn’t make sense.

Do you realize that we scored a field goal at the 19:41 mark of the 2nd half, then didn’t score another one until the 9:34 mark, then didn’t score another one until the 2:31 mark. That’s three field goals in 17 minutes of play after we shot a Packer Method 61% in the first half.

We might as well be going on a top secret mission to Italy with Ox and Francis.

I’ll go you one further. I think Tom Crean is our Big Toe. Our Unlce Hulka. He is a consummate professional and he’s charge of a group of guys who can’t seem to get it right no matter what they do. He looks like he’s been blown up in the middle of practice sometimes, and if you listened to any of his recent press conferences he sounds just as pissed at this team as Uncle Hulka was at his team.

And lastly, and I’m not sure I even need to point this out, it’s so obvious, but Devan Dumas, is a lot like Ox, he’s swallowed a lot of aggression, along with a lot of pizza.

I was able to find proof on-line. Please enjoy my Uncle Joe and his sweater.

I saw the lights of the Goodyear blimp…

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and they read, “Matt Roth’s a pimp.”

Watching Matt Roth’s shooting performance against Ohio State taught me a really important lesson. Namely, If I have an opinion about something, I need to say it here, otherwise I can’t say “I’ve been saying this for months” cause there’s no proof.
Here’s where I have been on Matt Roth for well over a month now and it’s going to seem like hindsight. He needs to play more and here’s why. If you’ve watched us play over this 11 game losing streak, and even before that I think you’d have to agree that all too often our offense gets down to the final seconds of the shot clock and needs someone to chuck up a shot. Matt Roth, if nothing else, is a tremendous release valve as he can shoot from anywhere.

I couldn’t realy find a place to insert that thought, largely because I knew he wasn’t getting more minutes because there are holes in his game in other areas, but I still thought he gave us more than he would cost us.

I’m not sure he should start, but he should be in the game a lot more. It’s very early in his career but where do you think he ranks as a pure shooter with the likes of Kyle Hornsby, Todd Leary, Brian Evans, Steve Alford and anyone else I’m not thinking of right now.

Now, let’s backtrack to the Northwestern game.

Do you remember Dakich’s debut last year in Evanston? I know I’m going to hear cries of extenuating circumstances here, but our game against NU in Bloomington last year wasn’t much better than the trip there, so I discount that claim. We played better on Wednesday that we did when we won there last year. Last year we got our ass handed to us by backdoor cuts and lay ups. We couldn’t slow them down, much less stop them. This year, we bumped their cutters, played much better defense, and gave up fewer lay ups. We don’t have the talent or experience that we had last year, but the preparation for this game showed more this year than any prep we did to play NU last year.

Tom Crean is the right man for this job. Want proof? Go back and watch the way he handled our players and that game in Evanston. He was calm when everyone else was getting wound up. He got worked up when they got quiet. His demeanor really guides this team and he’s almost always giving them exactly what they need. Remember when Verdell dribbled the ball off his knee and it went out of bounds in the second half? Verdell started to get all worked up and was complaining about the call. They took a shot of Crean and he was telling Verdell to let it go and go play defense. He said it twice, did not get the repsonse he needed and immediately pulled Verdell. He didn’t sit him because of the mistake. He sat him because he wasn’t putting it behind him. That was a great move.

More proof? This team believes they can win. Despite being in the midst of a tough losing streak, the guys on the bench, with 4:00 left in the game were excited, involved and into this game like it was the final possession. It wasn’t the body language of a group of kids who are just waiting to see how they were going to lose this game. That is 100% the coach.

OK, Ohio State.

I’ve turned the corner on this team. For the last three games I’ve felt pretty good about our chances going into the games and I haven’t been wrong. This is no longer a group of kids trying to find reverse on a soviet tank. These guys are now worthy adversaries.

Go back and watch our ball movement during the first five minutes of the Ohio State game. It was crisp. It had direction and intent. They knew where they wanted to go with the ball. They expected their teammates to be there, and they were. It was like watching an entirely different team. These guys finally have some idea of what it takes to compete at this level and they are.

Now, we clearly have issues. Allowing 78% shooting in the second half can only lead to defeat, but against a team that took us out of the game in the first three minutes in Columbus we were winning at the half and were within two with 8 miutes to go. It’s not a win, but it’s a HUGE improvement.

We’re going to beat Iowa on Wednesday. And it won’t be out last win of the season. I think we’re very close to being the team that people should be uncomfortable playing. We’re going to win a couple game we aren’t supposed to win this month.

The last point I’d like to make about the Ohio State game is once again in regards to Tom Crean. At times against Ohio State, he got worked up about the officiating (rightfully so), but as he well knows, he can’t do that. When he got all riled up, so did the players. They got chippy about calls, got distracted from what they were supposed to be doing by what the refs were doing. During our sloppiest periods, if you go back and look, you’ll find Tom Crean’s most emotional moments. The goal tending that wasn’t called. The foul on the three-point shot that wasn’t called against Ohio State and one after the blocked three-pointer that WAS called against us all got Crean worked up past the point that was helpful to his team.

I also recommend that you go back and listen to his post-game press conference. He was asked about the officiating on three separate occassions. In the silence that followed each of those questions you can replay every single coaching rant against bad officiating in your head. He was PISSED OFF! And he should have been, though, and I’m sure he’d be the first to agree with this statement, the refs didn’t cost us this game. They were uneven and missed a number of calls, but Ted Valentine wasn’t out there Saturday.

So, see me after we beat Iowa. Like I said, I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t want to come off as Mr. Hindsight, so I’m putting my expectations out there in advance. We’ve turned the corner. The Big Ten has stepped to us in the middle of the street and danced at us. We have put down the boom box and line danced right back at them.

It’s on, Randy. It’s On!

It turns out I dislike Illinois more than I thought.

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You know how they say that eskimos have like 1000 words for snow? With each new post I write it feels like I need to come up a new way to say “ouch.”
There area number of things about losing to Illinois that make it feel like your sliding down a razor blade into a swimming pool filled with rubbing alcohol.

It seems to be important to fit into a role. It’s like being on the Real World. On the Real World you need to have the black guy, the gay guy, the asshole, the slut, the naive farm/religious person.

In sports, it seems that you have to have the underdog, the powerhouse, the heroes, the villians, the cheaters, the righteous. We have been many things, the powerhouse, the underdog, the righteous, and sadly, the cheaters. But each of our identities has been of our own making and based on our own merits. We have never sought to identify ourselves in relation to others.

Enter Illinois. I’ve lived in Illinois for close to a decade now, and until last year I had no opinion of Illinois basketball at all. Other than the game in ’89 that we lost on the most improbable shot after Jay Edwards most improbable shot, I have no significant memories of playing Illinois. They don’t appear on my radar. I challenge you to come up with an Illinois memory prior to last year.

Since Eric Gordon changed his mind and decided to come to IU, the entire Illinois basketball program has decided that they are going to play the role of douchebag. Their identity as a mediocre basketball program wasn’t enough for them and rather than separate themselves from the pack based on their own merit they decided to pick a fight with us.

They acted with less class than a Kentucky fan last year and spent an entire game screaming obscenities at a college freshman. And they lost.

Then, this summer, when Bruce Weber was asked about his team for the upcoming year instead of giving an honest answer about his team, he decided to take a shot at us.

Let me tell you something Bruce. If the best you can say about your team is that you’ll be better than the youngest, least experienced team in the history of basketball then you should probably just shut up because it’s obvious that even you think your team isn’t worth talking about.

We lost on Saturday to a better team, which is sad because they aren’t a good team. They’ll finish in the middle of the Big Ten, like they always do, with very few exceptions and in two years we’ll be head and shoulders better than them again and I’ll cease caring about Illinois except for twice a year.

And speaking of their exceptions. Did you see the ads for the celebration of all things Illinois basketball program they were airing after the game on Saturday? The best they could come up with to celebrate was two years where they came kind of close to winning a championship.

Try not to rest too much on your laurels, kids. I’m so happy, that the best and brightest moments in the history of IU basketball don’t revolve around the years we almost won something.

I guess if that was my legacy, I’d try to make my bones by kicking a better program when they were down too.

After getting myself all worked up like that I really need to turn something up loud. This feels like the right choice. It’s not a real video for this song, but this song is just great and it makes me feel a little bit better.

Wha’ Happened?

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The Michigan game was a set back. And lest you think I’m talking about the team here, I should remind you that most of the time I’m talking about me. After my very grown up and mature reaction to the UK game, I was full on the chip after the Michigan game.

And not just because we lost the game. Without going into all the details that are interesting to no one but me, let me paint you a picture of my experience watching this game. I watched the first half on my slingbox while eating dinner. At half time I got up to clean up after dinner, empty the dishwasher, etc. And then my wireless network went down. I paused the game and went to fix the problem. I still don’t know what was wrong with it, but it took me nearly an hour and a half to get it fixed.

Once it was fixed I went back to the game, only to discover that my brother was watching the game through my slingbox. He said it was a close game, which meant he was watching it in real time and I had, in effect, missed the entire second half. I went into the other room, turned on the TV, and we WERE DOWN BY 4! IN OVERTIME!!!!!

I had no idea what happened. I watched us clunk our way to a lose via the freethrow line, but I was angry and depressed. Both because of the outcome and because I was caught completely off guard.

It took me an entire evening of stewing over this loss to get realize why I was so upset. It comes down to one word and has very little to do with the game it self.

Expectations.

The single greatest factor in any one person’s life is expectation. What you expect to happen completely controls your reaction to what actually happens. And this controls your mood and out look on life.

To prove my point, here are a few examples.

When I was an undergrad I was an RA. We used to have meetings everyweek in our supervisors room. She always had a jar of Peanut m&m’s on her desk and I would walk in, grab a handfull, toss them in my mouth and enjoy the chocolatey goodness. One day, around Christmas her jar was filled with the red and green holiday assortment. I grabbed my usual hadnful threw them in my mouth and bit down. On mints. It was disgusting. I had to run to the water fountain to wash the taste out of my mouth. All because I EXPECTED them to m&m’s. They were prefectly fine mints, but as I wasn’t expecting mints my reaction was severe and negative. If I expected them to be mints I would have been delighted.

I worked with a woman once who, again around Christmas, got a gift from a student. It was a piece of white chocolate with a raspberry center. It was homemade and in the shape of a flower. She had missed lunch, was famished and had about 2 minutes to eat so she ran into the teachers lounge and took a HUGE bite. It was soap. She tried to wash her mouth out, but the water just made the soap turn into foam and bubbles. It took a good five minutes to get it all out of her mouth. Unlike with the mints, there’s no way she would have enjoyed eating the soap, even if she knew it was soap, but if she hadn’t expected to be giving chocolate by her student (which is what most teachers get from most students) she would not have tried to eat it.

Expectations are crucial to more than just food and Christmas stories, though if you would like to see it in effect aroudn Christmas again, I suggest you watch Love Actually and pay attention to the scene where Emma Thompson opens her Christmas present from Alan Rickman.

Consider this scenario. You take a final exam. You leave the class feeling like you nailed it. You feel confident about your responses and are sure you got an A. You get the test back and you got a C. How upset are you?
Now, think of the same situation, only you thought you bombed it. How happy are you with that same grade?

Remember when the Arizona Cardinals lost to the Bears a few years ago and Dennis Green went off in the press conference after the game? If not, here it is. You know why he’s so mad? You guessed it. Expectations. He knew what to expect from the Bears in that game, game planned accordingly, and expected to win. He was right about what to expect from the Bears, but he still lost. If he knew what to expect from the Bears and was wrong he would have been surprised. If he had known what to expect from the Bears and expected that his team wouldn’t be able to match up, the loss would not have bothered as much as it did. His expectations informed his reaction.

Which brings me back to the Michigan game. As a rule, I’m suspicious of any Michigan team that people expect to be good. The last decade has backed that up pretty well. I expected us to be competitive against Michigan. I really thought we would win that game going in. The first half was great. Not only were we playing really well, but I was being proven right. When I came back to the game I was shocked. I was mad I had missed whatever happened and I was really mad that the new expectations I had developed by watching the first half were the exact opposite of the current reality.

My expectations of playing a competitve game against Michigan were completely accurate and fulfilled. My adjusted expectations based on our first half were what really messed me up.

So, let this be a lessen to you. Only expect bad things to happen. At worst, you’ll be right. At best you’ll spend a lot of time reacting positively to the most modest of successes.

Here’s a theme song all about expectations. Plus a great guitar riff.

Also, for your total lack of interest.

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