STF Fan Rants: In Which We Jinx the Crap out of William & Mary

By Rob & Whitney of Gheorghe: The Blog

Rob: So, the fine gentlemen at Storming the Floor have asked us to weigh in on our beloved William and Mary Tribe and their “turnaround season.” (STF’s words, not mine, for reasons that will become painfully, quixotically obvious in the very next sentence.) It goes without saying that the very existence of this conversation publicly is a massive, massive jinx - heck, the Tribe’s lost two in a row since Marco made the request. I feel quite a bit like Chris Farley in Tommy Boy, hugging and loving my pretty new pet to death. But the fact remains that the Tribe is 13-11 this year with a 9-5 conference record even after consecutive losses. And, as you know quite well, 13-11 and 9-5 trigger tears of joy and grateful rending of garments in our neck of the woods.

Whitney: Too true. We made our bones as Tribe fans watching them -- or not watching them -- suck it up in the CAA. Correct my math if it's wrong, but I believe our lads have already won as many conference games this year than they won in our first three years at the College. Oh, but if only that era had been an anomaly in W&M history, rather than merely one bad pothole on this long, brutal stretch of road.

R: Looking at the record books is hard to do with both hands covering my eyes, but you’re almost right. Chuck Swenson’s teams struggled to a 5-23 conference tally during our first 2 seasons (11-45 overall, for the love of all that’s Right and Holy), but soared to a 6-8 CAA mark during our junior year. I forgive you for blocking it all out. As I (barely) recall, there may have been some substances involved. That’s nothing compared to our alma mater’s CAA conference tournament efforts, though.

W: Ah, yes. Thomas Roberts and Co. powered the Tribewagon to six big ones in the Colonial -- those were the salad days. As long as you're perusing the annals of W&M men's hoop lore (you're the annal-retentive one among us), why don't you regale us with some quick hits on what the Tribe has managed to do in the CAA tourney? As I recall, they've fared significantly worse than attacking armies in Russian winters, only slightly worse than Bugs Moran's gangsters in Al Capone's garage. (Timely analogy, no?) Come on and share the carnage.

R: Well played. And, man, is this painful to recount. Extra P. noted the Tribe’s historical futility vis-a-vis the NCAA Tournament last week in Deadspin, telling the world that the Green and Gold is one of only 5 schools that have played in Division I since its inception never to take a step on the Dance floor. I see that epic futility and raise you the flabbergasting details of our ineptitude. W&M is 3-22 in the postseason since the CAA was formed in 1985. Our guys have never, ever won more than a single game in a CAA Tournament, with single scratches in 1988, 1997, and 2005 the only blemishes on our otherwise perfectly awful mark. We’ve never even sniffed the conference final, let alone dreamed the impossible net-cutting dream. The fantasy died hardest in the fabled 1997-98 season, when Jimmy Moran and Bill Phillips led the youthful Tribe to a 13-3 conference record, only to bow out in the first round of the CAA Tournament to 7th-seeded American.

W: Yikes. I do remember that powerhouse American University being our nemesis for a while, right before they left the CAA for the greener . . . players of the Patriot League. Unless I'm mistaken, AU's three conference wins one season were all against us, two in the regular season and one in the dreaded tourney. But . . . let us not languish in the ineptitudes of our past; let us rather flourish in the beatitudes of our future. After an inauspicious November/December that had us bemoaning, "Same ol' Tribe," this year’s W&M club caught fire. From January 5 to February 6 the Tribers won nine of their ten contests -- all in conference and many in convincing, comeback fashion. I must confess, each and every one of those wins was a pleasant but enormous surprise. Old habits die hard.

R: Tony Shaver’s already done the unthinkable, my friend. He’s brought hope to the hopeless, if not yet belief to the unbelievers. There’s a hard row still to hoe, with road contests at Towson and George Mason and home games against Drexel and VCU. Not to mention, the, um, tournament. (Shiver.) It has to happen in our lifetime, right?

W: There are no definites in the world of college basketball. There's every chance your epitaph could wind up inscribed as:

Here lies Rob
In seersucker pants
Ne'er saw the Tribe
Make the Big Dance

I guess the biggest detractor from real optimism amid this season of unexpected adequacy is the sense of déjà vu. For as much as this kind of success just never happens for our college, it has happened. A decade ago, as you chronicled. That tourney loss was painful, but when out-of-nowhere-success begat immediate back-to-nowhere-failure, that was just as disappointing. What's different this time around?

R: I make seersucker look gooood. To your point, I never thought the Red Sox would ever win a World Series, and that worked out okay. It’s a brave new world. (Note to the NCAA: "brave", in this context, has nothing to do with Indians, feathers, or anything else you, in your infinite and all-surpassing wisdom might deem offensive. Good work on protecting the flaming-spear/tomahawk chop Seminole thing.)



Keep hope alive. Yes, we can. PleaseGodletusmakeittothebigdanceonceinmylife.

W: Very good then. Like Dear Abby advised us, we have to stop wishin' for bad luck and knockin' on wood. The law of averages alone should have kicked in by now; that it hasn't points conspicuously to an egregiously poor program, but The Shavior and his coached-up Tribe's recent run will have Gheorghe: The Blog more intently (and optimistically) attuned to the doings in Richmond Coliseum in early March than ever before in G:TB history. We'll offer our usual predictions when that time comes; maybe this year we'll be able to stray from our trite Mr. T forecast for tourney time Tribe. (Prediction? Pain.)

(Editor's note: You like that? There's plenty more where that came from over at Gheorghe: The Blog)