Wait Till Next Year:

College basketball season represented a turn towards the homestretch for me. While I only stood at the halfway point as far as my year was concerned, I knew I just had to make it through the beginning of baseball season and then I could coast through the rest of the summer. But basketball season was a bit of a concern as it can invariably be the most crazy-making. Of the holy trinity of American sport (football, baseball, basketball) there is something in the setup and structure of the game of basketball that can lead its fans to be the most unhinged. To really understand the full scope of my argument, I think it’s best to look at the different sports from a religious standpoint – and keep your “Jeter is God” comments to yourself.

            Football is most like Catholicism. It is very structured, very ritualistic and has a very wide reach. Once a week everyone gets together – alcohol is provided – and then begins the eternal struggle with the weight of original sin, a.k.a. the decision to punt on fourth and inches. This type of abuse can only be tolerated every seven days, allowing one to return to the weekday world before devoutly recommitting oneself over the weekend.

            Baseball, on the other hand is like Zen Buddhism. With so many games in a season baseball fans will typically see a single win or loss as of little consequence in the grand scheme of the universe. It has also been observed that a Sunday-afternoon doubleheader has a comparable excitement level as watching someone engage in deep meditation. Philistines. Snatch this Dodger Dog from my hand Grasshopper and you shall achieve true enlightenment.

            As for basketball, I would say it falls somewhere between Snake Handlers and the Heaven’s Gate cult. Basketball is just a crazy game to begin with. No lead is ever really safe, massive point swings are common, the coaches all look like they are about to lose their shit and to top it all off there are all these damn lights and buzzers going off. It’s like some bizarre astronaut stress test. Then to make matters worse, you aren’t protected by the relaxing week off that football fans enjoy. A basketball game can come at you anytime: Saturday, Thursday, Tuesday, who knows? To top it all off we have the NCAA Tournament, which is like a giant tent revival where all of these crazies gather together and you’re just as likely to see them drop to the floor in convulsions while speaking in tongues. No wonder sports had stretched me so thin, I belonged to three major religions. It all just depended on what time of year you caught me: be it the self-flagellation of fall, the inner peace of summer, or the wide-eyed fanaticism of March.

            I know what it is to be seduced by the madness of basketball as I worshiped in one of its grandest temples – Gallagher-Iba Arena. Oklahoma State is not only fairly regularly competitive in basketball, but there is actually a tradition of excellence in the sport.The arena is a crazy place. For most of the time I was enrolled at OSU the old arena was in pretty much the same form it had been in since it was constructed in the 1930s. That meant that it had a capacity of only a few more than 6,000 people, but that also meant that there literally wasn’t a bad seat in the house. This is not an environment you want to introduce a sports nut to.

            Standing in the student section of Gallagher-Iba Arena is as close as I will ever get to competing in a ma