Caption: Your optimistic dad cheering for the Razorbacks.
No offense to baby Chase, but the magic is gone. Yep, it’s time for another classic Arkansas drought. As an avid sports fan, I understand that there will always be ups and downs no matter how good the team is you are rooting for. As much as my wife would hate to admit it, even the Kansas Jayhawks have lost a game this season—the funny thing about that loss is it’s the only Kansas game we made a point to watch all year.
Luckily, Arkansas’ losing streak is exactly what An Optimistic Razorback Fan wanted to talk about in this week’s installment of the Dribbling Ink Conversation Series.
An Optimistic Razorback Fan: OK, since losing is a part of sports, I should be able to cope with the Razorbacks’ newest losing streak. Right? You win some, you lose some? Plus, we still have a chance of finishing .500 and going to the NIT.
Jacob Cooper: Wrong. Let’s look at Kansas’ loss to Tennessee earlier in the year. Since the Jayhawks were (and are once again) the top-ranked team in the nation, a loss for them should be difficult to explain. However, it’s rather simple: Four Volunteers were arrested for guns and drugs, with a couple of players getting kicked off the team. A few days later, Kansas rolled into Knoxville. Naturally, the home crowd was in a frenzy, and the team had an “us against the world” mentality. I’m sure Bruce Pearl told his Vols, “Everyone thinks this team is going to fold. Your season is over, and Kansas is going to dig your grave tonight.” Oddly enough, these things seem to work in sports. Almost predictably, Tennessee played its best game of the year and won.
AORF: So if the best team in the nation loses games then I shouldn’t feel bad about Arkansas’ losses. Thanks, Jacob.
JC: No, no, no. Wait. You aren’t listening. Kansas had a legitimate reason why it lost. Give me one good reason why Arkansas has lost three of its last four games?
AORF: Well, their last three losses did come on the road. It’s always tough to win on the road—just look at your Kansas example.
JC: Good point. However, the Hogs’ last three losses have come at the hands of Alabama, Auburn, and LSU—all teams that they beat the first time around. Furthermore, these teams are a combined 9-30 in the SEC. Sadly, three of those nine wins are against Arkansas.
AORF: Yeah, but we beat South Carolina in the middle of those bad losses. Doesn’t that count for something?
JC: The South Carolina game sums up all my frustration with the Hogs. After a five-game win streak allowed Arkansas to surge into first place in the SEC West, the Hogs lost a highly contested game in Alabama. After amassing a double-digit lead in the first half, the loss to the Crimson Tide was disappointing. After five weeks of great basketball, it’s like they flipped the switch—except they flipped it back off. There’s no logical explanation. They just reverted back to a team with no confidence or ability to make routine plays. But what do they do next week for an encore? They beat a talented (underachieving) South Carolina team that is the only team to beat Kentucky all year. Boom—hope is back. Seven days later, hope is diminished again with an unexplainable loss to Auburn.
AORF: It’s not like they played terrible, though. I mean, they had a chance to win both games. That’s all you can ask for as a fan.
JC: Sure, even at this point, I still had hope. Arkansas had just made winning the West a bit tougher. They were tied with MississippiState but, most importantly, held the tiebreaker. However, it all fell apart. Let’s not drag this out. Even if the game was in Baton Rouge, you expected the Razorbacks to win. LSU hasn’t—well, hadn’t—won a SEC game all year, 0-12. The Hogs had just plastered them by 35 points exactly two weeks ago. Then they only manage 18 points…18 measly points…less than one point a minute…one made-shot every 1:48…in the first half the second time against LSU.
AORF: Oh, that’s bad.
JC: And how do we explain this loss? LSU didn’t just have four players kicked off the team, and the Tigers definitely didn’t have a crowd in a frenzy. In fact, there were approximately 65 people there—and only that many because they thought it was a gymnastics meet.
AORF: There’s nothing wrong with gymnastics. Arkansas is ranked eighth in the country in gymnastics.
JC: I give up.
Obviously, this conversation is made-up. However, it served a number of purposes: I published a weekly interview as promised (though a day late), I wrote about the Razorbacks, and I vented. Next week I will get back to talking to real people, even if it is my mother, whose house I still live in and sleep under the red satin sheets with the miniature table and tea set at the bedside (you have to read the previous blog for that to make sense).
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Sometimes I sit around writing my own obituary in my head. It’s not that I plan on dying, or that I’m that old, but I just wonder what my legacy would be. If my family had to sum up my life to this point, I’m afraid there wouldn’t be a lot to say. Let’s highlight my first twenty-six years. I hit a game-winning shot against Nettleton—truly the type of shot you dream about as a kid shooting hoops in the driveway—to help Paragould High School make it to the state tournament in 2004 (this is the highlight of my short and mostly uneventful athletic career); I won the Citizenship Award my senior year, which my mother says is way more important than any academic or athletic award; I wrote for the Paragould Daily Press for four years, and I still have people say they miss my column (but you guys can quit lying to me already); I married a girl who is way more intelligent and athletic than I ever dreamed of being; I graduated from college, twice; and I have an adorable puppy that takes up all
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Caption: Your optimistic dad cheering for the Razorbacks.
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