Upsets, Miracles, Curses
What a crazy couple of days. Bobby Cremmins gets an upset over UNC. Even Heel fans have to have a little appreciation for that one. If I were Cremmins, I'd retire today!
The NC State/Florida game still has me dazed. My brain still hasn't completely processed what I saw. To quickly summarize for those who were too distracted by the Panthers 3rd straight win:
Most people thought NC State didn't have the talent to stay with Florida. Florida isn't great, but they've got some talent. The Pack hung with them the entire game, I'd say probably even lead more than not. Trailing by 2 near the end, as we've seen so many times, Javier comes up with a huge play to tie the game, and we go into overtime.
Javier hits a 3, and State looks like they have the game won, up 6 in overtime. FL hits a 3, State starts misisng free throws. Lowe pulls a card from the Valvano deck and starts fouling to not give up a 3. They hit theirs, we miss ours.
Now here is where even the casual fan starts to think maybe NC State is cursed. This curse idea is common to all bottom dwellers, but anytime there is losing and guilt, the word curse is going to come up. Guilt? Oh yes, there is a lot of guilt in wolfpack nation. We feel a little guilt for all the luck we used up winning in '83. We feel guilt over the fact all standards were thrown out the door during the mid-to-late 80's. We feel guilt over firing Valvano. We feel guilt that V died, most of us assuming the firing somehow caused it. We feel guilt that we didn't appreciate Herb and ran him off. Guilty Losers soon conjur up curses.
How else do you explain it? With 3 seconds to go, down 2, Florida tries to miss a free throw. The kid tries to throw it off the back of the rim. Only, it goes in. Now, state up 2 with 2 seconds to go, we miss the free throw. That isn't so bad. I actually said moments before, "you are almost better off missing this one".
Obviously not. You could offer Chandler Parsons a million dollars and give him 20 tries, and he couldn't hit that 75 foot shot again.
How do you explain something like that? It has to be a curse ;)
2 comments:
Didn't see the game, but when I heard what happened, I said, "That figures." Just another one of those inexplicable, gut wrenching losses that sadly we've grown accustomed to.
It seems that all of the teams I follow are cursed. First there's NC State that Ken's done a great job of explaining. Does anyone still get cold sweats thinking about Dudley Bradley stealing the ball from "Clyde the Glide" and slamming one home for a Tar Heel win in Reynolds? Next there are the Braves... One World Series win in 14 straight playoff appearances? Of course being a Panthers fan is starting to be a lot like being a Wolfpack fan, and my Redskins have gone beyond cursed to outright sucking.
As many of you know my wife teaches at Terry Sanford High School, so I've started following them. Two years ago the basketball team lost to Apex in the regional semi-finals after having an 8-point lead late in the game. Last year they lost in the State Finals when their star player had the worst night of his career. To top it off, the Football team had a dream season going. After beating Jack Britt in the last game of the season (most exciting football game I have ever seen)to win the conference championship, an ineligible player was discovered, so a 9-2 record with potential for a deep run in the playoffs went to 0-11 in the blink of an eye.
Bottom line... if you see me rooting for a team, it's in your own best interest to pull for the other team.
you're a good writer , and sh*t...
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