 Mike HlasHi, I'm Gazette/TheGazette.com sports columnist Mike Hlas. This is the Hlog. We will meet here, discuss things, and then go [...] |
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New Mexico loses to Harvard, and I respond
I'm not giving away my feelings in this smaller headline
I thought Harvard had perfectly sound strategy, and its players performed beautifully in earning their 68-62 NCAA tournament win over New Mexico Thursday night.
After leading for most of the game, the Crimson fell behind by a point. Instead of getting rattled, they came right back. Very impressive.
As for New Mexico, well, that’s a tough loss.
That’s all I’ve got to say about that. A heavy underdog won. A big favorite lost. It happens every year.
That covers it for me. You’re free to use the comments section here if you think my statement doesn’t exactly cover the waterfront. But if you do, please, try to be elegant. Or at least something other than vulgar.
With fear of getting electrocuted from comments about former Iowa/current New Mexico coach Steve Alford, I couldn’t resist checking out a message board at HawkeyeReport.com late Thursday night. I only spent a minute there (honest) because I quickly found a comment that couldn’t be topped. It was this:
Tonight we are all Harvard alums!
Sports. They make us crazier than we should ever get over unimportant things. But luckily, they also give us some laughs.
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The chickens, they always come home to roost.
Mike, Iowans are not a revengeful sort. Never have been. Even though the two coaches prior to Fran systematically dismantled a basketball program that had years of reliable, almost automatic basketball success built-up, each in his own distinctive way and have each experienced a bit of hardship since leaving, I would not go so far as to say there is joy in Mudville over all that.
Nor would I every suggest their difficulty to get players and fans to buy into their ideas of sustained basketball success is a statement about the state of Indiana, and it’s sense of basketball entitlement.
Sure, it may be that Steve cannot get his perennially overrated team to make hay outside of that idle widdy conference, probably because of his school’s new overemphasis on football, while Todd is just too distracted from his coaching, mainly because of those endless hours managing the men and women’s bowling team as well as all the bus assignments for his athletic department. But these are grown men darn it, and they sure as heck don’t need anyone around here crying for them! [For full effect, read the previous sentence in the voice of Robert Montgomery Knight through a megaphone while swinging your arms wildly as if at buzzing horse fly.]
Was that one of those special “March situations”?
I don’t know that Alford destroyed Iowa basketball- he did have some good teams, even though the tournament performance left much to be desired. His biggest problem was arrogance, both on the job and in the public eye. Iowa fans do not easily accept that from their coaches, and Alford’s was burning bright at all times.