March Madness/Sadness

Dr. M here. This is my first (and hopefully not the last) blog entry. If you do not care about sports, please scroll down and see the adorable pic of E and I below.

As you know, the Moens are huge college basketball fans and March is a great time for college basketball. So we filled out E's first bracket and had a lot of fun. Of course being a graduate of KU and having lived in Lawrence for seven years we always root for the Jayhawks and the Big 12 conference. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned for Kansas. We were all devastated by the early upset that the best basketball team in America suffered. Especially little E, he was completely distraught as you can see below.

It got me thinking about what a bitter-sweet time of year this can be when your favorite team is a perennial power. First, the NCAA basketball tournament is the single greatest sporting event ever. This loss does not change my opinion about that. However, it is a shame to me that one loss can make an extraordinary season a disappointment. A team that swept its rivals (one being a very, very good team), dominated the best conference during the regular season, and won its conference tournament should not be considered failure. This is the problem of being the favorite, favorites are bound to be upset and when it happens everyone else loves it. This is what makes the tournament so great. Everyone loves the underdog. KU's opponent played a brilliant game and that is going to go down as one of the biggest wins in that schools history. Nobody can ever take that away from them and I give them all of the credit in the world.

For teams that expect to win a national championship it is that much more agonizing to their fans when they fall. This is why I think Kansas fans are some of the best basketball fans. Everyone loves it when their team fails. Everyone throws it in their face when they lose. But the fans keep ticking. It is easy to love the tournament when your team is mediocre. When your so-so team does make the tournament your season is automatically a success and if they make a run, well that's icing on the cake. When they don't make the tourney the fans don't have a vested interest, so they can just sit back and enjoy the show. So why even bother supporting KU. Because when they do put it together, it is that much sweeter. This loss made me realize how special 2008 really was. I was finishing my Ph.D. that year and when the whole city of Lawrence came together to celebrate KU's national championship, it was incredible.

So we will continue to root for our Jayhawks through the lows and highs. Because no matter the how low the low is, the high will always be better.

E and I watching basketball