[Bumped to top — again — and edited/re-ordered a bit. -ed.]
Kyle Whelliston’s “Epilogue, the Sixth” — an 8,173 epic featuring a quasi-political rant, a look back at the season that was, a look forward to the seasons that will be, major news about the composition of the Other 24 25, a non-sequitur about some girl Kyle has a crush on*, a recycled Bally cartoon, a season highlight video that’s way better than last night’s heinous bastardization of “One Shining Moment,” and, er, lots and lots of other stuff — includes this quoted message, sent to Kyle last night by a Butler fan:
I’m trying to come up with words to say how I feel. So proud of my Dawgs. Yet… I hear all the neutral fans say how disappointed they were that we couldn’t pull it out at the end. I imagine how the world would be if that half-court shot (or the one before it) had gone in. It would have been…. perfect. It’s not now. And I don’t know if it will ever be that close again. It was almost Hoosiers. It almost didn’t end in a loss. They almost won this one for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here. But they didn’t. Please tell me they can try again next year?
“It always ends in a loss,” Kyle responds, repeating one of his credos. However, he then adds a hopeful note: “But this moment, right now, is a new beginning. It is the renewal of hope that things will finally change.” Hope and change! If I may be so bold as to illustrate this concept:
For the uninitiated, that’s Bally, the Mid-Majority’s adorable mascot and Loyette’s favorite spherical book character. Many of Kyle’s fans have their own Ballys, and this season there was even an epic, unprecedented gathering of six Ballys:
Speaking of Kyle’s fans… my experience of this year’s NCAA Tournament — the Best. Tournament. Ever., which ended last night with the Greatest Shot Ever Almost Made — was made infinitely richer by my discovery of the remarkable social-networking community that exists around Kyle and The Mid-Majority. I have of course been well aware of, and admiring of, Kyle and TMM for a long time, but I arrived somewhat late to his “Twittertron” party, what with its #ALLCAPSGAME goofiness and #pixelvision silliness and #midswin and #thanksdawgs earnestness. Yet in the end, reading the tweets by @julia_flyer and @thrashsoundly and @polarscribe and the rest of ’em — and @midmajority himself, of course — became an integral part of March Madness for me. Now that “Season 6” is over, the withdrawal that always accompanies the end of the Tournament is even more severe than usual, because I know that Kyle’s awesome, crazy community will basically disband until November 1. I wish I could afford to attend the Season 7 Symposium in Indy, and meet some of these folks in person, but alas. Kids, mortgages, student loans. You know the drill. As Becky always says, “maybe when we win the lottery.” 🙂
Anyway, back to Kyle’s Epilogue. After his quote from the sad Butler fan — like, 7,000+ words after — Kyle ends Season 6 with a story about another mid-major team’s more mundane exit from the national championship chase. Mundane, and yet not mundane at all. (Nothing is ever mundane in Kyle’s telling.) Here it is:
Morehead State and Murray State played exactly even for 30 minutes on a neutral court in Nashville, with an NCAA Tournament bid in the balance. But the Eagle shooters suddenly went cold from the field; key players whose efforts would be necessary for the final stretch took on too many fouls. The Racers engineered an effortless 11-2 run, a string of clean steals and showy dunks, and broke the game open. In the game, the camera focused on Coach Tyndall, looking on as the reality sunk in: it always ends in a loss, and this was his.
Murray State would go on to the Big Dance as a No. 13 seed, where they shocked Vanderbilt on a last second shot. And if it wasn’t for a busted play on the Racers’ last possession in the second round against Butler, history would tell a very different tale.
Morehead did play on, albeit in one of college basketball’s sad ghost brackets. After beating Colorado State on the road during the first round of the CBI, two time zones away from their Kentucky home, the Eagles went on to Boston University. There, MSU’s season ended for good, in overtime. The day after Saint Mary’s eliminated Villanova in the real Tournament, I took the train up from Rhode Island to see that game. I wanted to see Coach Tyndall.
“Coach, while I was watching that game on television, I couldn’t stop thinking that quote,” I told him as we stood on the Case Gym court after the game. “What Isaiah Thomas told you at that conference.”
“‘This game will hurt you,’” he replied. “There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t go back to what Isaiah said. I have it written down.”
“I could see it in your face,” I said. “”I’m just a writer, so I’ll never have a moment like the last 10 minutes of that Murray State game. I can’t imagine how that feels.”
“Kyle, this is something not many people would understand,” Coach Tyndall said, putting his hand on my forearm. “But you will, because you went through it too. It felt like when I got divorced last summer.”
He paused, gathered himself in order to maintain composure. “When we lost that game in Nashville, it was like I was going through my divorce all over again. I couldn’t get out of my own head. Instead of replaying conversations over and over, I was replaying game tape. It was like, fuck. If I’d just done this thing differently, or if that thing had gone the other way, or if the other thing hadn’t happened… maybe it would be have turned out differently.”
I gently pressed for clarification. “What did it feel like you were being divorced from? Was it your team, or was it 2009-10?”
“The season,” he responded quickly, nodding. “The season. We’re still a young team… except for Maze [Stallworth] and a couple others… most of these guys are coming back. God… there were just so many things about this year, it was like we were so close. We won 15 of 17, but would have won 17 in a row if we hadn’t lost two of those games by a point each. Last possession, both times. We were one win away from having the best season, record-wise, in school history. Then we were 10 minutes away from going back to the NCAA Tournament. We came up just short.”
Butler can certainly relate to that feeling.
Those second chances seem far away now. The summer is long. Some will come to their senses and leave Our Game altogether, angry and frustrated and discouraged. But when the fall comes, many will lose their senses anew, and they’ll come back; they’ll find that this game is too much a part of who they are, and they’ll return for another beautiful season. Those of us who keep going, keep doing and keep traveling are fools in the throes of unrequited and foolish passion. There are thousands of us, everywhere, content to find and share the company of other perpetually jilted lovers, inspired and pushed forward by those fleeting and fading glimpses of beauty.
We do because we love, and we do in spite of that love. We are married to a cruel game that doesn’t love us back, but we go ahead and love anyway. And we couldn’t change if we wanted to.
Read the whole thing. And thanks, Kyle.
*Via e-mail, Kyle points out that “Little Red-Haired CPIA Girl is no non-sequitur, she’s a recurring character.” Alas, this is what I get for not following the site as closely as I’d like the last few years. I blame fatherhood and A.D.D. (And Obama!) But I’ve officially become hooked, or re-hooked, this February & March, and will be eagerly awaiting November 1, when Season 7 begins.
I’m a little less hopenchangy than some in the midmajoritysphere, maybe in part because while concepts like “sportz” and “sports bubble stadium” are enjoyable memes for fans, they don’t mean as much for a person considering their own interests. Specifically, last night Brad Stevens showed that he is making far less than his market worth as a truly outstanding college basketball coach; people who persist in earning less than their worth are (Mark) Few and far between. That’s just life. Most of us tend to think that way.
(Of course, Butler could follow the Xavier model of cultivating a successful program such that the departure of each coach to greener pastures leaves behind a capable assistant to take his place. Not sure if Butler has that setup. In any event, Stevens is surely way too good a coach to work for a Butler salary for all that much longer).
Been thinking about that last shot too, and while it is sad that Hayward missed it, if you accept the premise that the only criteria that matters in sporting events is that they be “fun”, there is something “fun” about being thatclose, feeling like we were oh so close to the imaginary alternative world where the most amazing thing ever…didn’t quite happen. Again, if fun is the only relevant criteria, for a non-Butler fan, last night was pretty darn good, even if Hayward’s shot didn’t fall.
As a comparison, consider the modern NCAA giant-killer to whom Butler would be compared (with apologies to Villanova). Go to the 1:54 mark of this compilation of NC State/Houston highlights. There’s something vaguely unsatisfying about Wittenberg throwing up an airball on his comparable shot, yes? Charles’ putback is cool because it leads to the desired result – NC State slaying the giant – but…aesthetically…or on a fun basis…there’s something about that play that doesn’t feel quite right.
Maybe Butler just needed a Lorenzo Charles to put back Hayward’s miss. Still, for sheer entertainment value, including the immense “what if” entertainment value, Hayward delivered, which is about all you should really expect to ask for from a sporting event.
(Unless you’re a Butler fan, in which case you may be looking at extended therapy).
Kyle has argued that Butler is, in fact, the ultimate example of a “continuum” model that can survive the loss of a key player, a head coach, whatever. Stevens himself is an example of this: he wasn’t the coach in that 2007 season that ended with a close loss to Florida in the Sweet 16 (making the Bulldogs the only team to seriously challenge the Noah-Brewer-Horford steamroller that year), which was Butler’s most successful tourney run until this one. Todd Lickliter was. Lickliter left for greener pastures after that season (though they look somewhat less green now), but there was no appreciable dropoff at Butler, and indeed, three years later, they’ve reached heights undreamed-of under Lickliter. While I don’t expect regular Final Four runs, I also don’t foresee Butler having a dropoff akin to George Mason’s or Davidson’s (or the one that Cornell, for instance, is almost certainly about to have), even if Stevens leaves. The Butler Way will endure.
Having said that, I’d dearly love to see Stevens stick around for at least one more season. As things stand now, Butler looks a bit like basketball’s Boise State — a really good team this year that should be even better next year, a team that entered this year as (at best) a grudgingly respected underdog that ought to have a whole lot of genuine respect to start next year. Of course the big difference is, Butler actually got to play for a national title this year. But Coach K isn’t just being nice when he says “They’ll probably win it next year.” They’re a real threat to be back. It’ll take a lot of good breaks to make that happen, obviously, but that’s true for any team — just ask Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, Ohio State, etc. etc., teams that were certainly championship-caliber this year, but didn’t get enough breaks. There are no guarantees, but Butler should be a force to reckoned with next season… and while the Butler Way will endure regardless, Brad Stevens sticking around to see it through would certainly be a huge help.
One of the nice things about not having a blog is that you can write really stupid things semi-anonymously, with the implications being fairly limited. One whopper from yours truly was the observation yesterday that Butler’s performance would help mid-major hoops in that other coaches would attempt to copy Stevens’ path to excellence.
Uh, that would be true, were it not for the little issue that every other coach thinks he is great, thinks that his team plays the kind of disciplined help defense Butler plays, etc. They will learn little from Butler, cause they don’t know how much they don’t know.
I also wrote that the moment would be too big for Butler, and it was, in parts – Howard’s point blank misses at the beginning, the obligatory offensive cold spell at the end – but in general they were well-prepared for the high-pressure event. CBS had a clip of Stevens giving a last-minute pep talk to the boys prior to the game, and where other gasbag coaches in similar situations say unhelpful things like “Think of your family! Think of your pride! Think of tradition!” (among other things that are, in fact, distractions), Stevens said – perfectly appropriately –
“Think of your teammates”.
When I mentioned the Xavier model previously, I was trying to get to the idea that the success Motta had before he left for Ohio State was witnessed and incorporated by Miller, who carried it forward and taught it to Mack (before Miller left for Arizona). There’s a right way to prepare and coach a team like Xavier or Butler, so promoting the capable assistant seems like the best way to keep that continuity.
Leading to the question: is that Butler’s plan? I understand that Stevens was working for Lilly before he took the Butler job, which would seem to suggest that “Lickliter’s assistant knows the ropes” was not the way the school thought.
One other thing: Whelliston’s argument that Butler will remain successful due to the school’s, and players’, commitment to success, strikes me as a bit of ideological naivete…particularly coming from the state of Indiana.
Not that Whelliston specifically would be interested, but one really only needs to drive an hour south of Indy to find the signature, traditional powerhouse college basketball program in that basketball-mad state, which currently finds itself staring into the abyss of irrelevance because all the passion in the world won’t help you a bit when you hire a crappy, overrated coach.
Man, speaking of writing stupid things, I just realized that Stevens came to Butler – from Lilly – to be Lickliter’s assistant. He was there with Lickliter for several years. Apparently the Butler way has continuity at its core. Moving on…
Wait, Butler lost?