When you are used to lows, the highs are higher.
I have never had more fun watching sports than the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs and the 2019 MLB Playoffs. Yeah 2006 was great but I had only been a Mason fan for about 6 months at that point since it was my freshman year (and also we eventually lost).
That last sentence hits home. There is nothing like March Madness and the conference tournament is always a lot of fun when I have attended. It obviously would be a lot better with Mason doing well, but I guess I can settle for rooting against vcu too, to some degree.
A vcu loss gives me 9/10 the high of a Mason win. An effective methodone-like substitute that can assuage my worst withdrawals for at least a little while.
That last sentence is everything.... seems we had the life back from 1999-2011 when us diehards would look forward to the CAA tournament every year in Richmond. It was more of a mindset of who we would play in the finals that year, which hot girl from a different fanbase you were going after at the bars (UNCW were usually the hottest) and what vcu hipster would one of us get in a verbal fight with and at what bar..... or which one of our buddies would end up with Jollay at 3am at god knows what establishment.
I'm not much of a hockey fan so I'll have to take your word for it on the Caps. However as a baseball first fan, I beg to differ on the Nats. The team is poised to lose 90-100 games this year and probably the next (2024). They will continue to stockpile talent and age off bad contracts. MLB will have to get involved in the MASN debacle (they should since they caused it) and a buyer will eventually materialize. The infusion of new money and the maturation of a slew of position player prospects, will allow the team to go get pitching (a la the Scherzer deal) and make the team very competitive in the last few years of the decade ..... right about the time the Mets and Phillies massive contracts for aging players start to look like Corbin's. The Braves are smarter than the other two and will likely still be the competition when the Nats are ready. I didn't mention the Marlins for obvious reasons.
I sure hope you're right...I'm not too hopeful at the moment for obvious reasons. I haven't been following as closely since I moved out here and it's a real chore to keep up with a 100-loss team when you have a baby and other things to do. I'd love a reason to watch again (when they aren't playing the Dodgers, Angels, Padres, Giants, or Athletics, per MLB blackout rules...)
Reason to watch the Nat's this year will be to see the young guys, particularly the pitchers (Cavali, Gore, Gray) and Abrams, to see how they develop. LOTS more talent in the minors too that will be making anticipated big league debuts this upcoming season and the next two.
I wouldn't count on Leonsis spending, then again baseball would be a new area for him so who knows what to expect. He's a sports marketing guy first, so we would at least not do dumb things like trade Soto (yeah I know it probably wasn't THAT dumb to do), but I'm not sure how far he'd go into getting the front office in order to actually build a winner. He seems content that if he has the stars he needs to fill the seats than a championship is secondary.
Probably one of our worst performances as a team at the CAA tourney and against our worst foe at the worst time possible. We were sitting on the aisle and next to the rams section to the right of us and 4-5 ram fans just kept getting up and coming over to our rows and fanbase and rubbing it in, talking smack, and cheering all up in our faces.... our 6'4 friend almost fought all of them LOL. We did have a good fan base then but not as rowdy as the home team would get and that would piss us off more. A lot of the fanbase would just sit in their seats and barely stand.
The Northeastern debacle in Richmond was what made it possible to move on from Hewitt as quickly as we did. Mason blew a 25-point lead in the semifinals, with JMU waiting in the final. We had beaten JMU what seemed like 30 times in a row and if we had made the NCAAs, Hewitt probably gets an extension and we would’ve been stuck with him for a few more painful, futile years.
Is it bad I think "eh might have been worth it to make the NCAAs again"?
I had the same thought while reading that post. With where we are in 2023, in hindsight I would absolutely take an NCAA appearance in 2013 in exchange for a couple more years of Hewitt. How have the years since been any different? Every year since we have pretty much been between 120 and 220 in rankings and entirely irrelevant nationally.
