Sidelines
The road has been
bumpy for the ’BowsTHEY'RE still out there. There's no getting off this ride, not until it's over. There is no escaping their own personal Twilight Zone.
What more can go wrong for the Rainbows on the road?
They lose to good teams. They lose to bad teams. They lose to mediocre teams, and in the final seconds. There's no explanation for it, just losing, and that, in case you're wondering, is always frustrating, never fun.
It's over. The great Rainbow fairy tale of 2002 officially came to a one-point end Thursday night at Louisiana Tech. Even were they to win tonight (and you can probably find a number of people willing to take that bet), the long-anticipated NCAA at-large bid is long gone, and perhaps it has been for longer than we've thought.
So much for dynasties.
This isn't last year's team. This isn't even this year's team, not the team it was supposed to be. Carl English is a star, but Savo ... well, he was Savo (and he had English behind him). There are guys who haven't taken the steps we projected for them, you know who they are. This is a bunch that has been undone by fast food, long flights, hotel beds and home calls.
Somebody's putting Kryptonite in the overhead compartment.
At home -- and I've seen it, you've seen it -- these guys are stars.
"These kids are special, as you know," Riley Wallace said last week, after that fantastic overtime win over Tulsa, before they had to head out again into the cold, cruel world. "They've done a lot of winning for me."
Great wins, wonderful wins.
They want to win, more than you or I or any of us know. But somehow, on the road, it escapes them without reason, like a golf swing gone awry.
I have three words for you: "Evil Twin Theory."
You know what I'm talking about. You've watched "General Hospital" and "Melrose Place."
On the road the favored Rainbows are replaced by lethargic doppelgangers. That has to be it. At first the losses were stunning. Now, all but expected.
This year, a colleague commented recently, it's not so much that any team in the WAC can beat any other, but that any team can lose.
Interesting. And apt. But what we're interested in is why this team seems to.
It calls to mind that scene in "The Natural," where management brought in a hypnotist to stop the bleeding, doing anything, desperately, to stop that slide. These Rainbows have psychologists, and lucky lunches, and study time and field trips. Nothing has worked.
Perhaps it will tonight, at long last.
These Twilight Zones are tough to snap out of. And there is never any explanation for them. Just losing, that's all.
Now the NIT is a possibility, and how would that feel? Now there is no fairy tale. Now there is only a basketball team playing basketball games, playing them, without benefit of a bigger picture, simply to win or lose.
Tonight is that first night. Let's see what happens now.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com