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CHEERS FOR FOX SPORTS 2
OK, fine: just before tip-off, we were pretty torqued off at you, Fox Sports 2. It was hard enough finding Fox Sports 2 on the dial, and then you go and bump the game to something called FSGo, which a quick and totally scientific survey conducted by yours truly showed no one in the nation had ever heard of? Weak sauce, we said. At least until Nebraska Omaha jumped out to a 12-2 lead. Then we started thinking you might've been on to something.
JEERS FOR FOX SPORTS 2
And then, in what appears to be a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions, you go and replay the game at 10 o'clock last night, just when the whiskey was starting to wear off? That ain't right, man. Ain't right.
CHEERS FOR COACH BRENT WILLIAMS
And not just because your new team managed to out-stink MU yesterday, what with losing to a mountain range and all. Rather, it's because I realized that had Coach Brent come back to MU after last season's nightmare, things would be probably playing out much the way they are right now (although it would be intriguing to see how Coach Brent would construct a lineup without Steve Taylor or Jajuan Johnson and with four freshmen who he'd refuse to play, but I digress), only we'd be paying someone almost $3 million to go 15-17 and lose to freaking Omaha.
JEERS FOR THE SUDDENLY SHIFTING NARRATIVE
If I've been following the narrative correctly since March, I believe we've gone from: (1) good riddance Brent, you showed in the last two years you couldn't get elite talent to MU anyway; to (2) thank God Coach Wojo convinced (almost) everybody to stay, Brent was really holding these guys back last year and they'll be liberated now; to (3) you can't be that disappointed when we lose to freaking Omaha, it's not like Wojo has anything to work with this year. So we've come full circle, I think.
CHEERS FOR A BENCHMARK
There are sure to be ups and downs in the Steve Wojciechowski era, featuring games that Marquette absolutely should not have won and other games that Marquette indisputably should not have lost. So if there's a bright side to getting boatraced in your own gym by Nebraska freaking Omaha, it's that we've already got a convenient benchmark against which to gauge future improbable losses; to wit: "Yeah, it sure sucks that we blew a double-digit lead with 8 minutes to go against Seton Hall, but it's nothing compared to the time we got asses handed to us at home by Nebraska freaking Omaha." (In case you're wondering, Tom Crean's Nebraska Omaha loss was the NIT disaster against Western Michigan, and Brent Williams' was the Louisville debacle in 2011, which I'm not linking to because I'm still not ready to talk about it. Check back in five years.)
JEERS FOR KEN POMEROY
I don't understand maths, Ken Pomeroy. Accordingly, I leave it to you to tell me when the maths say I should be worried about a game like this, when it's not safe for me to have one ear on the radio while I do my shirt laundry. And you said this game was safe, Ken Pomeroy. You said: yeah, they play really freaking fast, and yeah, Marquette looks shaky defensively, but don't worry -- the Google machine says you don't need to fret about this one. You and your algorithms and long division are dead to me, Pomeroy.