As I sat last night after our loss to Sacramento St. watching the opinions flow in on twitter, I realized that Utah Basketball has become an abusive spouse to us. Now let me preface this with, I’m not making fun of abused spouses and I feel for their struggle and this is a piece of humor and maybe not even very funny, so if you’re going to get all worked up. DON’T.
You see during the final four era, our relationship was all bright and shiny. Sure there were signs of problems, we laughed off all of Majerus’ questionable behaviors because things we’re great. But things started to turn bad and I think our fanbase went one of three directions.
1. A third or more of us simply got divorces from basketball. Those folks stopped showing up, stopped caring and found a sexy new man to rebound with named Urban Meyer and then settled down with Kyle. Things aren’t perfect with Kyle, but he doesn’t beat us.
2. A second group have become the stereotypical person who keeps saying it’s going to get better and he still loves us. Basketball makes small changes like coaches, and these folks know that everything is better. Then Sacrament St. happens and we tell everyone that we slipped in the shower, that losses like these happen all the time to all kinds of teams and we just need to love Utah basketball even more.
3. In the final group we have Allison Janney, the retired Marine Col.’s wife in American Beauty. Yeah we’re there, we watch everything, but we’re empty and emotionless inside. We’re aren’t getting a divorce but we’re not really cheering anymore. We just sit in our seats staring at the court, knowing what is coming, accepting it even.
I realized this because I’ve moved from two to three. When you’re a number three, the number two, who I was for years, become laughable. I’m not sure which is worse.
Maybe I just should have gotten divorced.