March Madness resumes Thursday at 7:15 p.m. when Stanford University and the University of Dayton \u2014 10 and 11 seeds respectively \u2014 square off at the FedEx Forum In Memphis, Tenn. in the first game of the Sweet 16. As you probably know, UC won\u2019t be there.<\/p>\n
UC will be the same place as you and I, watching at home from the couch, from the bar, or, more likely, not watching at all.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t feel right, it never has felt right and it never will feel right, when whatever team you\u2019ve just spent three months supporting sees its season end in the first round of the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n
Every single team, one through 64 \u2014 well, 68 now that the NCAA has deemed it appropriate to punish four teams with play-in games every year, so that it may clutch a few more fists full of dollars \u2014 has a claim to it being \u201ctheir year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every team in college basketball has a story to be told, a walk-on leading the team in scoring, a coach overcoming insurmountable family hardships, an unheralded fifth-year senior blazing his way into lore on the back of only his own hard work and determination. That\u2019s Sean Kilpatrick, but his story will not be the darling of March.<\/p>\n
One story from one of the 16 teams remaining will, but that leaves 67 other teams crying.<\/p>\n
Survive and advance: It is the same thing that makes the Madness both the best and worst tradition in college sports. The finality is what feels wrong. How can a brilliant 31-game regular season end in one painful span of 40 minutes played 2,000 miles away in the basketball mecca (insert heavy, heavy sarcastic tone) of Spokane, Wash.?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how it can, but it did for UC and it feels wrong. Wrong that your team is out, wrong that I won\u2019t be sitting on press row at Madison Square Garden Thursday night, and more than anything, wrong that the careers of Sean Kilpatrick, Justin Jackson and Titus Rubles ended \u2014 and will in many ways be forgotten \u2014 with an glory less loss to Harvard in a city that might as well have been in Canada.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a special thing in major college basketball these days \u2014 a team with three seniors like the three that Cincinnati had this year. And to those three I am grateful. They\u2019ve sent me out with a great season of games and stories, most of which were good enough to write themselves: the 15-game winning steak, Kilpatrick\u2019s dominance, Jackson\u2019s emergence, the captivating victory at Louisville that finally grabbed the national media and said \u201cWake the hell up, Cincinnati basketball is back.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is back, very much because of the contributions of those three seniors. Unfortunately and unjustly, much of their contribution will be forgotten because March Madness is where legacies live and die. And in first-round losses, they die.<\/p>\n
Sean Kilpatrick\u2019s name will get its rightful place in UC basketball lore, etched in white adhesive next to that of Steve Logan\u2019s and the others named All-American in their time as Bearcats. Someday, years from now, they may retire his jersey \u2014 they should.<\/p>\n
Justin Jackson will live on in the hearts of UC fans, jumping over tables and chasing down unknowing players who\u2019d wrongly thought they had an uncontested layup, only to see Jackson send their shot into the 20th row \u2014 mean face.<\/p>\n
Rubles, forever underrated, might someday be forgotten all together. None of them will be remembered how they could\u2019ve been \u2014 how they should\u2019ve been \u2014 had UC made a deep tournament run, whatever that constitutes.<\/p>\n
Collectively, they will be four white numerals sewn into a banner of many more. Two. Zero. One. Four: 2014, American Athletic Conference Champions. Nothing more than a banner for men to look up at when we\u2019re older, \u201cThose guys could really play,\u201d said old me to inanimate grandchild I may or may not ever have.<\/p>\n
That will sadly be their legacy some day. I say sadly because their legacies should be that of three players who helped to drag this program back to the forefront of college basketball. Instead, we\u2019re left with a banner and the memories, the last of which was the saddest of all.<\/p>\n
Kilpatrick put up the game\u2019s final shot, a runner at the buzzer just for the sake of shooting. Final Score: Harvard 61, UC 57. There\u2019s Justin, crouched with his head between his knees, hiding his face from the camera that refused to look away. When it finally did the next shot was no better, Titus, tears streaming down his face with the memory of a crucial missed layup burning into his heart. The camera never found its way to Sean, and thank God for that because I\u2019m sure he was inconsolable.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s so much wrong with that being the final images we get of them as UC basketball players.<\/p>\n
Sean \u2014 the relentless All-American scorer \u2014 missing a shot that meant nothing. Justin \u2014 the fearless shot blocker, turned most improved player in college basketball \u2014 sitting on the floor. Titus \u2014 one of the toughest players in college basketball \u2014 sobbing.<\/p>\n
Thus UC\u2019s best season in a decade, the first that had truly captivated the city in quite some time, ended in the most unfitting of manners. It\u2019s the reminder of what we\u2019ve always known but somehow forget during the course of every season: It only ends well for one team, one fan base, one group of seniors.<\/p>\n
The Madness knows no storylines. The Madness is as coldhearted and unforgiving as it is captivating and enthralling. The Madness is, after all, madness \u2014 painful, beautiful, unwavering, heartbreaking madness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March Madness resumes Thursday at 7:15 p.m. when Stanford University and the University of Dayton \u2014 10 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,127824,398,400,401,99],"class_list":["post-232763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-mens_basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}