Primordial Chaos

 I love it when both the Lobos and Heels play a game on the same day. It's just basketball all damn day. The Heels played yesterday and lost though, which was a bummer, but not entirely unexpected. And my math was pretty damn accurate thank you very much. I predicted 96-87, it was 103-90. This is probably the only time you'll hear me be proud of math I did. :P Anyways, this season is kind of weird. Last season I was cheering on the Heels because they were rocking, and keeping up with the Lobos more as a well, the Heels aren't playing, might as well. Lost interest in the Lobos, really, was more enthralled with the Heels. Plus the Lobos were kind of embarrassing last year and weren't really playing good games. This season, as we go along, I keep up with the Heels to see how they're doing, but the Lobos definitely have the lion's share of my attention. One because I can get a little more involved since I go to UNM and get to go to the games for free, but a huge reason is this is an underdog story, and I fucking love those. Here's a team everyone, including the fans, had written off, the predictions of what they'd accomplish during the season were pathetic, it's a team with only 3 upperclassmen, one of whom is a transfer and new to UNM this year, our coach has only been here 3 years, and we'd lost most of our upperclassmen and our 3 top scorers last year because they graduated. There was NOTHING impressive or attention grabbing about the Lobos. The team basically thumbed their noses at all of that, they're 12-0, ranked for the first time in 11 seasons, beating top 25 teams, are managing to win even when they're playing terrible (like last night) and despite their youth and lack of time playing together as a team, these guys play like they've been together as the Lobos for years. PLUS they stay humble about it, there's no egos whatsoever on that team. A lot of teams would be like "that game was close, but we won so whatever!" , these guys are "why did it get so close, what can we do better, what did we learn?". Then they bust their asses to improve on it, and the next game you can see where they've made progress. Here's a team proving everybody wrong, and doing so pretty damn well. I LOVE that. I don't know how the story ends, so I'm paying close attention to how the story goes and every time I'm at the Pit I'm also a part of the story. I'll always root for the underdog, but it's even better the underdog is the home team.

 So, last night was our game against Creighton, which I will refer to as craptown for the rest of the post. So, first off I wound up being late, which kinda sucked, because I missed tipoff and the first 7 minutes of the first half. Things WERE NOT looking good when I got there, and by the time the half hit, we were down by 12 and had been down as far as 16. We were missing shots all night long, which was bizarre because we're such a great shooting team. Even Ro was off his game, and I was kinda concerned we were about to get our first loss, and at home, even. However, Ro realized he was having a crap shooting night, and he pulled off some amazing plays, like when he got this rebound of Butter's missed free throw then fed it back to Butter for the dunk. He may not have been the best on the stats sheet, but Ro definitely knew how to adapt and where he could contribute the most. He'd even pass on making shots and pass to someone else who was in a better position to score. He's our only senior, but he doesn't take that as his pass to play like he's the only one who can do anything. He knows everyone's strengths and weaknesses, so he knows where to get that ball to if he can't do something with it.

By some twisted fate, I was seated within shouting range of the craptown parents who showed up. They were talking mad shit during the 1st half, and I told them politely and kindly (hahahahaha) that they wouldn't be so loud during the 2nd half. During the rest of the first half, me and these two dads were yelling back and forth, but NOBODY can talk shit like I can. ;) They were thoroughly offended by the time half time hit. They had their kids' names and numbers on the shirt, and during the 2nd half I knew what my plan of attack would be.

The 2nd half was the best damn basketball I've ever watched and it was intense being in the Pit for it. Now, for the WHOLE GAME, the Lobos hit about 29% of their 2 pointers and 20% of their 3s. When I say it was a bad shooting night, it was a fucking BRUTAL night. Somehow though, we started coming back. Craptown was thrown off their game and they kept screwing up. I would politely (*snicker*) point out to the 2 parents who had talked shit when their sons screwed up. ESPECIALLY if it resulted in points for us. I started a chant of "Sit down craptown" a couple of times too. I am basketball's equivalent of a soccer hooligan. The players and coach were not immune to me either. I have quite the mouth on me and have some pretty creative strings of insulting and profane words I like to use. The looks on some of their faces were priceless. I had a great time.

The 2nd half was so intense because the Lobos were bouncing back, we kept exchanging the lead for a while there and it was close for so long, 1 or 2 point lead for either team. It was so good I was standing and cheering (and talking shit) the whole time, I was going to grab some pics and vid, but I didn't. It was even louder than last time. Most of the Pit was standing during the entire 2nd half. Craptown's coach was yelling instructions to his team, but we made damn sure they couldn't hear them. You couldn't even hear the BUZZER we were so loud.

Butter really feeds off of the crowd, and he loves it. At one point during the 2nd half he was down on the court and he was signaling to everyone to get up, to cheer, to yell, to clap and to do what the Pit does best. He later said that he knew they needed the Pit crowd to get through this. And boy...did the Pit respond. My ears are STILL ringing this morning. I was going to do a video to go along with this post, but my voice is gone. I was clapping so hard my palms are two giant bruises. Damn near everyone in the Pit got as intense, a few of my friends lost their voices too. The HELL if our first loss was going to be on our turf and especially in our Pit! I'm pretty sure the Pit is the only place I can howl at full volume and bark but still fit right in with everyone else. :P

Those craptown parents got real quiet as the 2nd half went along. When the Pit would jump up cheering, they were the only people sitting down, their little corner of blue shirts drowning in a field of REALLY LOUD red. Those two dads would glance at me every so often, and I would just grin evilly at them while they shot daggers at me with their eyes. I'd taunt them every so often when their sons would screw up, and they couldn't really say anything back cause we were coming back at them hard.

I'd calculated the approximate score earlier in the day, but that was based on how many shots we usually make and how many on average each person makes, how many the teams makes, etc. I was WAY off because we weren't making even 30% of our shots as a team. There was no way I could have predicted THAT. It was our worst shooting night of the season, but we STILL won. So we're 12-0, still undefeated, and one of only 8 teams in the country who are undefeated. The others are Missouri State (unranked), Kansas (#1 in the country), Texas (#2), Syracuse (#5), West Virgina #6), Purdue (#4) and Kentucky (#3). And scrappy #19, the UNM Lobos, are in some pretty good company, yeah? New rankings come out tomorrow at noon, we'll see what our spot is then.

It's funny, lurking on the rivals.com, espn.com and all those other sports sites, people are like "WHERE THE HELL DID THESE LOBOS COME FROM?". All the experts predicted we'd come in 5th in our conference, and wouldn't even go to the NIT competition, which is like the consolation prize for those who don't go to the Big Dance. Below the NIT is the CBI/CIT competitions, which are consolation prizes for those who don't go to the NIT, and that's where we were predicted to go. Hey experts, we'll see you at the Big Dance. ;)

Last night I had a moment, looking around at all the screaming fans and our team who was enjoying the hell out of it, the visiting team who wasn't, the fellow students in 26/27...and I thought, UNM SUCKS academically, but I could stay here for this. The experience of a Pit basketball game is addictive, and I love it.

I don't know how I'd justify my presence if it wasn't basketball season though. ;)

~A.