If you don't want to read a beyond sports, human analysis after last night's Kentucky loss then I suggest moving on to the next thread. This is not about Wisconsin grabbing a dozen more boards or shooting twice as many free throws as Kentucky. This is about how the team should be viewed in history, how different kinds of fans are reacting to last night, and how best to put together our thoughts on the season that way.
If you think some of this is a bit dramatic I won't fault you. I like sports primarily because in the raw intensity of organized human conflict they tell us something about ourselves; about the competitors, the fans, the coaches - everyone.
It really is all about perspective. There are some slogans that go in one ear and out the other because we hear them so often and they seem trite. But this one's always true. It's all about perspective.
In this case, it's as simple as a little gratitude. If you're a fan of Kentucky basketball then you've got the best and worst of both worlds. If you cheered for Washington State you still might let your happiness on a Saturday ride on a win or a loss, no matter how likely or unlikely the win or the loss is. Fans are unreasonable to varying extents. But if you're a Kentucky basketball fan in 2015 the trouble is you can reasonably justify pretty much anything. We should have makes total sense because of nine McDonald's All-Americans. We could have is absolutely true, because UK was 38-0.
Expectations really determine our happiness. As husbands, wives, friends and fans. The more we expect, the less grateful we are when good things happen, because expectations breed entitlement. The less we expect, the more grateful we should be.
It's easy for our expectations to get outsized especially in sports because fans are fanatics and fanaticism is placing emotions over intellect. How happy do you want to be? If you want to be happy, stop expecting things. Stop expecting 39-0, stop demanding one title for every two Final Four appearances (as has been posted elsewhere, Coach K has four in 12 appearances). If you want to be happy, and that's really the only reasonable hope for anyone, then just enjoy the ride and be grateful for whatever happens.
Calipari has won a title in six years. He's been to four Final Fours in six years. By any measure his success at Kentucky has been over and above the historical average at Kentucky. It's been one of the best runs in program history. The '09-15 run in Lexington has been the best, arguably, since Kentucky's '48-58 four-title run under Rupp.
Winning titles is hard. The pain of losing in the Final Four is severe. When you go to four Final Fours in five years, the losses stand out. Because there are more of them. On average, a team should expect to win one time out of every four trips. Kentucky, historically, performed better than that. But frankly, Kentucky historically also did not reach the Final Four as much as you probably would have expected the best program of all-time to. Calipari has significantly narrowed the Final Four gap.
This year's team will always be remembered for the loss, but inevitably it will be remembered for more. Kentucky fans are likely baseball aficionados. Numbers matter. This team added to the win percentage, the conference regular season and tournament title total, the Final Four total, the tournament wins, the all-time weeks at No. 1, etc. It also added the lore of the program with recruits, probably for the next ten years. It will send yet more players to the NBA that will expand the program's reach with fans across the country, making the bandwagon bigger, and it will cause recruits to commit to Kentucky many years from now, whether they realize it or not.
Gratitude is the key word here. Fans that are grateful for what comes can find peace after last night's loss. Fans that have expectations rather than gratitude will never be happy.
It's been said that every fan base has crazy fans. Kentucky has more because it's a bigger fan base than most. But you and I can probably both agree that the temptation to collective narcissism is more real for UK fans than for most others. There are many factors for this. For one, the 'Big Blue Nation' is the main show in the state; no pro teams. The tradition goes back longer, the connection to the state's culture is deeper, and it's seen as something for the state to hang its hat on in spite of others imperfections. Collective narcissism is "my group's better than your group," and allowing self-esteem and happiness to be based on the performance of the group. And because it's already rampant in Kentucky fandom, it's more of a temptation and trapping for every fan.
Gratitude is the antidote to that.
If you think last night's loss was one of the worst in program history, be grateful than Kentucky has losses in '92 against Duke, in '09 against West Virginia, in '75 against UCLA ... because a program's greatness can be measured not only by the significance of its greatest wins, but the pain of its most stinging defeats. Heartwrenching losses in March and April are no less heartwrenching because of this, but the more you have the more you're living in March and relevant during a time of year when every other fan base would love to be.
Dean Smith won two titles with enormous talent in four decades. Coach K has won four titles in nearly the same amount of time; but perspective should tell you this: Maybe the greatest of all-time, Coach K, has won about as many titles in about the same period of time as the Kentucky program. So during Coach K, or thereabouts, Kentucky has as many titles as K. That could change Monday, but again - perspective.
Calipari's Tower of Babel. Some of you might not like the Scripture reference but if you're not the religious type then just take it as a literary parallel. So the story goes, a group of people sought to build a tower "whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves..."
Obviously the story has it that the builders were given different languages and scattered because they could no longer communicate. But beyond this one attempted explanation at the preponderance of different languages and cultures, the story's real significance is the human striving for perfection and its impossibility.
Calipari has brought Kentucky to incredible heights, but along with those heights comes the curse of those expectations. The more fans drink of success as a wine, the more intoxicated they become. Perspective is lost, just it is with someone who gives himself over to the love of money. Stories from all over the world speak of the perils of greed, of pride, of jealousy - the love of money is the root of all evil, so it's said. For a fan, the love of perfection is the root of unhappiness.
That's not to say striving to be the best is wrong. It's simply to say that all striving should be tempered by the realization that perfection is impossible. UCLA's 88-game win streak was snapped, and all Bruins fixated on the one loss rather than the 88 wins. The more Calipari builds, and wins, and recruits, and succeeds -- for some fans, only pain and discomfort will increase. More will ride on the outcomes, more fear precedes the games, the wins are followed by sighs of relief rather than excitement.
Calipari may have had the nation's most talented team three or four out of the six years he's been at Kentucky. Does that mean he should have three or four titles? Of course not. Talent's one thing. Experience, how the pieces fit together, how the match ups are set up, injuries, venues, who plays well on a given day -- together, over six games in March, all of those things account for at least as much as talent. It takes luck, usually. Just to be in the conversation five out of six years is a tremendous accomplishment.
I remember watching the trailer for the movie about Kentucky fans recently. Someone said in it that religion should bring happiness to people's lives. Kentucky basketball fandom is a sort of religion in some respects, but it's filled with misery for many. That's really unfortunate. It's always going to be true, but it's a lack of perspective and mostly a lack of gratitude.
Really the only way to really enjoy the Calipari era -- and it's a real shame if a Kentucky fan can't enjoy it -- is to fight hard to be grateful even when every instinct cries out that a person shouldn't have gratitude but entitlement.
I'll be completely honest. There was a time after the more ugly Tubby years and the Billy Clyde Gillispie era when it appeared as though Kentucky, in the modern era, was not the best program in the country. The numbers might have still been in their favor, but the numbers against UNC and Duke were largely padded by the pre-ESPN dominance of Adolph Rupp. Final Fours, national relevance year in, year out, McDonald's All-Americans and all-around prestige simply favored those other schools over thirty years.
Calipari has changed that. Calipari has reestablished Kentucky as the best program in the country in the modern era which is really the feather in the cap that most Kentucky fans have been lacking. It's one thing to say, "The greatest program of all-time," but if it's 13 years since your last Final Four that really doesn't mean a lot to many people - certainly a lot fewer recruits. He's established that Kentucky is not just the best program of the 40's, 50's and 90's, but it can be the closest thing to an elite team every single year that the sport has had since UCLA or Duke of the late 80's early 90's.
That should be enough. For some people it won't be. Those people are suffering from a lack of gratitude and that's more a personal cage than a real sports observation.
This post was edited on 4/5 9:33 AM by JRowland
If you think some of this is a bit dramatic I won't fault you. I like sports primarily because in the raw intensity of organized human conflict they tell us something about ourselves; about the competitors, the fans, the coaches - everyone.
It really is all about perspective. There are some slogans that go in one ear and out the other because we hear them so often and they seem trite. But this one's always true. It's all about perspective.
In this case, it's as simple as a little gratitude. If you're a fan of Kentucky basketball then you've got the best and worst of both worlds. If you cheered for Washington State you still might let your happiness on a Saturday ride on a win or a loss, no matter how likely or unlikely the win or the loss is. Fans are unreasonable to varying extents. But if you're a Kentucky basketball fan in 2015 the trouble is you can reasonably justify pretty much anything. We should have makes total sense because of nine McDonald's All-Americans. We could have is absolutely true, because UK was 38-0.
Expectations really determine our happiness. As husbands, wives, friends and fans. The more we expect, the less grateful we are when good things happen, because expectations breed entitlement. The less we expect, the more grateful we should be.
It's easy for our expectations to get outsized especially in sports because fans are fanatics and fanaticism is placing emotions over intellect. How happy do you want to be? If you want to be happy, stop expecting things. Stop expecting 39-0, stop demanding one title for every two Final Four appearances (as has been posted elsewhere, Coach K has four in 12 appearances). If you want to be happy, and that's really the only reasonable hope for anyone, then just enjoy the ride and be grateful for whatever happens.
Calipari has won a title in six years. He's been to four Final Fours in six years. By any measure his success at Kentucky has been over and above the historical average at Kentucky. It's been one of the best runs in program history. The '09-15 run in Lexington has been the best, arguably, since Kentucky's '48-58 four-title run under Rupp.
Winning titles is hard. The pain of losing in the Final Four is severe. When you go to four Final Fours in five years, the losses stand out. Because there are more of them. On average, a team should expect to win one time out of every four trips. Kentucky, historically, performed better than that. But frankly, Kentucky historically also did not reach the Final Four as much as you probably would have expected the best program of all-time to. Calipari has significantly narrowed the Final Four gap.
This year's team will always be remembered for the loss, but inevitably it will be remembered for more. Kentucky fans are likely baseball aficionados. Numbers matter. This team added to the win percentage, the conference regular season and tournament title total, the Final Four total, the tournament wins, the all-time weeks at No. 1, etc. It also added the lore of the program with recruits, probably for the next ten years. It will send yet more players to the NBA that will expand the program's reach with fans across the country, making the bandwagon bigger, and it will cause recruits to commit to Kentucky many years from now, whether they realize it or not.
Gratitude is the key word here. Fans that are grateful for what comes can find peace after last night's loss. Fans that have expectations rather than gratitude will never be happy.
It's been said that every fan base has crazy fans. Kentucky has more because it's a bigger fan base than most. But you and I can probably both agree that the temptation to collective narcissism is more real for UK fans than for most others. There are many factors for this. For one, the 'Big Blue Nation' is the main show in the state; no pro teams. The tradition goes back longer, the connection to the state's culture is deeper, and it's seen as something for the state to hang its hat on in spite of others imperfections. Collective narcissism is "my group's better than your group," and allowing self-esteem and happiness to be based on the performance of the group. And because it's already rampant in Kentucky fandom, it's more of a temptation and trapping for every fan.
Gratitude is the antidote to that.
If you think last night's loss was one of the worst in program history, be grateful than Kentucky has losses in '92 against Duke, in '09 against West Virginia, in '75 against UCLA ... because a program's greatness can be measured not only by the significance of its greatest wins, but the pain of its most stinging defeats. Heartwrenching losses in March and April are no less heartwrenching because of this, but the more you have the more you're living in March and relevant during a time of year when every other fan base would love to be.
Dean Smith won two titles with enormous talent in four decades. Coach K has won four titles in nearly the same amount of time; but perspective should tell you this: Maybe the greatest of all-time, Coach K, has won about as many titles in about the same period of time as the Kentucky program. So during Coach K, or thereabouts, Kentucky has as many titles as K. That could change Monday, but again - perspective.
Calipari's Tower of Babel. Some of you might not like the Scripture reference but if you're not the religious type then just take it as a literary parallel. So the story goes, a group of people sought to build a tower "whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves..."
Obviously the story has it that the builders were given different languages and scattered because they could no longer communicate. But beyond this one attempted explanation at the preponderance of different languages and cultures, the story's real significance is the human striving for perfection and its impossibility.
Calipari has brought Kentucky to incredible heights, but along with those heights comes the curse of those expectations. The more fans drink of success as a wine, the more intoxicated they become. Perspective is lost, just it is with someone who gives himself over to the love of money. Stories from all over the world speak of the perils of greed, of pride, of jealousy - the love of money is the root of all evil, so it's said. For a fan, the love of perfection is the root of unhappiness.
That's not to say striving to be the best is wrong. It's simply to say that all striving should be tempered by the realization that perfection is impossible. UCLA's 88-game win streak was snapped, and all Bruins fixated on the one loss rather than the 88 wins. The more Calipari builds, and wins, and recruits, and succeeds -- for some fans, only pain and discomfort will increase. More will ride on the outcomes, more fear precedes the games, the wins are followed by sighs of relief rather than excitement.
Calipari may have had the nation's most talented team three or four out of the six years he's been at Kentucky. Does that mean he should have three or four titles? Of course not. Talent's one thing. Experience, how the pieces fit together, how the match ups are set up, injuries, venues, who plays well on a given day -- together, over six games in March, all of those things account for at least as much as talent. It takes luck, usually. Just to be in the conversation five out of six years is a tremendous accomplishment.
I remember watching the trailer for the movie about Kentucky fans recently. Someone said in it that religion should bring happiness to people's lives. Kentucky basketball fandom is a sort of religion in some respects, but it's filled with misery for many. That's really unfortunate. It's always going to be true, but it's a lack of perspective and mostly a lack of gratitude.
Really the only way to really enjoy the Calipari era -- and it's a real shame if a Kentucky fan can't enjoy it -- is to fight hard to be grateful even when every instinct cries out that a person shouldn't have gratitude but entitlement.
I'll be completely honest. There was a time after the more ugly Tubby years and the Billy Clyde Gillispie era when it appeared as though Kentucky, in the modern era, was not the best program in the country. The numbers might have still been in their favor, but the numbers against UNC and Duke were largely padded by the pre-ESPN dominance of Adolph Rupp. Final Fours, national relevance year in, year out, McDonald's All-Americans and all-around prestige simply favored those other schools over thirty years.
Calipari has changed that. Calipari has reestablished Kentucky as the best program in the country in the modern era which is really the feather in the cap that most Kentucky fans have been lacking. It's one thing to say, "The greatest program of all-time," but if it's 13 years since your last Final Four that really doesn't mean a lot to many people - certainly a lot fewer recruits. He's established that Kentucky is not just the best program of the 40's, 50's and 90's, but it can be the closest thing to an elite team every single year that the sport has had since UCLA or Duke of the late 80's early 90's.
That should be enough. For some people it won't be. Those people are suffering from a lack of gratitude and that's more a personal cage than a real sports observation.
This post was edited on 4/5 9:33 AM by JRowland
