Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder...

Well, its been awhile. Like many things in life, I couldnt quite bring myself to post about the Albany - UConn game (almost a week now), so I just ignored it until it went away. A few posthumous thoughts:

• They played fantastic basketball.....for 30 minutes. Then, UConn remembered it was UConn, toughened up on defense, and shot the lights out. Game over...warm up the bus.
  
• Have to be proud for the boys.....suddenly, it was CBS switching the local games TO the Albany game.....not vice versa like it could have been.
  
• The first ten minutes of the second half were like nothing Ive been a part of for a long while. I was bartending, it was St. Patrick's Day, and the place was silent....we were packed, but dozens upon dozens of pairs of eyes were fixated on the boys in black, yellow and purple. When Albany would score, the place erupted......people hugging, high-fiving, etc....and these were people you could tell were not huge hoop fans, and certainly not big Albany fans. But you could tell they knew this transcended team loyalty....
• This should be the final nail in the "Keep Will Brown" movement....a deal that should have been done months ago. As Mark Singelais reports here, the two sides plan to meet Monday about a deal (Brown was paid $105,990 this year....in the bottom half of the America East).
  
• Hopefully this was the thing that puts Albany on the map, and makes the Capital Region (Capital District...which is it?) a 2-team basketball city. I am not an anti-Siena person as much as I am a pro-Albany person, but i do get sick of the attention the Saints would get regardless of their standings/performance. Anyway....

I found myself Saturday in a bag of mixed emotions over the game. At the beginning of the season, all the pre-season hoop magazines (Street and Smith's, Athlon, etc.) all said the same thing...this is Albany's year. They were loaded, as loaded as an America East team can be. Anyway, I never quite believed it.....an America East tournament win would bring about an NCAA berth.....something beyond imagination. They started off rocky this year, playing tough competition (Florida, UCLA, San Diego State......three tournament teams), losing all three games, mixed in with a Sacred Heart and a Siena loss. Soon, they were 2-6, and looking like the same old Albany.....then they won, and won again. They rattled off 8 in a row, and this was looking like the advertisements. They clinched the America East regular season, won the tournament, and got an NCAA berth. Nobody gave them a chance vs. UConn (including myself), but they hung tight, leading by 12 halfway through the 2nd, before the wheels fell off, losing a tough one, 72-59. So, bottom line is that they exceeded any expectations I (or a lot of people) had for them this season.....so why was I so disappointed?
They were never going to win it all. An NCAA berth is more than what I hoped for. Perhaps it is because this was such a good, exciting season, I don't want it to end. Maybe it is due to the fact that we had UConn on the ropes with 10 to play....and didnt come out on top. Either way, I was confused Saturday.....satisfied with the season, but wanting so much more.