in the dawghouse

i'm at cb's place and his shift keys on the computer don't work, so i will be writing the entire post in lowercase. somehow, that seems appropriate.

we were up from 3am to 6am listening to the game, and i think it took as much a toll on us as it could have on anyone. the bottom line is that the calls didn't go our way and that even the very impartial announcers agreed we could and should have won this game. the technical on roy and the no-goaltending call that should have gone against conn probably cost us the win, and both of those were unjustified by all accounts. too, the luck didn't run our way. we were up by 4 with a few seconds to go and managed to make one of the dumbest fouls we've ever made. i feel terribly for the guy who made it because he's one of our senior players and the blood in his veins runs purple and gold. he takes missed opportunities harder than anyone else on the team, and it is just brutal that this will be the final play of his uw career.

the good, if there is any, is that we hung with conn through regulation time and overtime, stayed with them when our best player had to sit on the bench for 7 minutes, and gave them a battle until the very end when five of our best players had fouled out. we should have gone farther; the game proved we could play any team in the tournament and win, and i think a win here would have given us a run to the final four or even beyond that.

still, we'll be back. all indications are that this bodes well for the future of husky basketball; we have a hot recruiting team coming in next season, but it just stings to think that the guys who built this team won't have the chance to play for a title. i didn't sleep very well last night, thinking about what could have been and how we'll remain unappreciated -- in the eyes of east coast commentators, all this does is prove conn is the best team, rather than revealing that really, honestly, the other huskies could have taken them out despite a ridiculous amount of adversity, bad calls and height disadvantages.

we'll live to fight another day. still, that's small consolation this morning.