Between the Columns for Monday, March 24

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It’s Monday morning, so it’s time for me to let you all know what’s been on my mind the past week.

This week, it’s a spot for me to get out my basketball thoughts I’ve been holding back on since Thursday.

Basketball Thoughts

1. Let’s talk about the season now that there’s been a few days to calm down.

We’ve made it through another sports season, and though it didn’t end well, it’s still a good time to try to bring some perspective and reminisce about the year a bit.

Was it a disappointing end to the season?

Definitely. No question about it.

With the talent and ability the Tigers showed through late January and through February, losing to Drake and letting the Bulldogs dictate exactly what they wanted to do throughout was abhorrent.

I’m not going to go back to before the season for what people were saying would make for a successful basketball season. Obviously coming off last year, just winning a few conference games would have been a success.

This team showed early on that they were better than last season, though that first game against Memphis was scarily reminiscent of issues from the 2023-24 team.

The next handful of games weren’t too telling. There’s only so much to learn against cupcakes, though showing the ability to put up 100 multiple times was still impressive.

Cal didn’t end up being a good team (14-19 overall), but that win showed a resiliency that the Tigers had to show people they were capable of.

Then came the Border War and a win that gave all the students in attendance a memory they will remember forever singing Mr. Brightside on the floor with the players to celebrate.

And I remember asking after that game, “What do the Tigers still need to do to make this season successful?”

A number of the responses still had some amount of “Win a conference game or two” to them, we hadn’t gotten to that point yet so it makes sense for that to still be necessary.

But I also remember a few specific ones. “They beat the Beakers, whatever else happens, it’s been successful.”

The Tigers won the border war, they beat top-5 Florida on their home court, they put up 110 on a top-5 Alabama team. They became the first team to ever go from winless in conference play one year to over-.500 in conference play the next.

Obviously the end of the year was rough, I’m not making excuses for the way it ended. But the first 26 games still happened, they’re still real. Just because the final eight didn’t go the way people wanted/expected doesn’t mean those first 26 no longer exist. ...

The rest of Between the Columns is for subscribers only, so head over to the story thread to get the rest of my thoughts from the week.

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