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A lot of great points on this thread !
As has been much debated on this site over the years, the NCAA tournament is so great precisely because it still is ultimately a crapshoot.
Obviously the odds of a 14-15-16 seed winning it all are astronomically small, but great teams, historic teams, still lose in the tournament. It just is what it is. Imagine being a kentucky fan last year… Their WHOLE season was simply framed as “win it all or the season is a FAILURE” (thank god for wisconsin). But for me, i never have had huge expectations not matter how amazing the KU team we bring into it, so it is not a crushing letdown like it is apparently for many on this site.
Everybody here has a slightly (or majorly) different take on what it means to be a fan of KU. I wonder if people on this site have truly examined the particular type and nature of why they are a fan? Its at the core of why sites like this and many others exist. I have always found that for me, it is like a relationship to someone or something you care about. It is not rational at its most elemental level. Relationships are messy and irrational. You dont really pick teams to root for and care about, in essence they pick you. Life has a funny way of paring you up with the people or things you end up emotionally connected to. Relationships can be exhilarating, unexpected, exciting, rewarding, hard to understand sometimes, and they can be frustrating, and oh yes they can be PAINFUL. For many posters here, it apparently helps them to make sense of things to analyse to a high degree all the factors that go into the players, the coach, the strategy. The attempt to rationalize something that you care about on an emotional level.
Some KU games now i tape and watch later, because i get too stressed and worked up watching them live - my blood pressure skyrockets !
I dont have control over this honestly. For some reason, although i essentially do like and root for all the KU players, some players i just naturally like more. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book “Blink” illustrated how our preceptions work unconsiously and we get quick impressions about people and things instinctively. He calls it “thin-slicing”. Sometimes this can be an astonishingly accurate tool as shown by studies and data compiled afterward, and sometimes it can be really ultimately wrong. For example, i cant explain and rationalize why certain past KU players were my favorites (Sherron, Kevin Young, travis, Russell robinson- i actively disliked selby from the get-go and could’nt explain why), and why Jamari is my current favorite jayhawk, but he is, and no amount of posters statistically dissecting why jamari is at best a very limited role player and a poor choice for Self to Play will change that.
So i watch the games, try and understand more about the intricacies of the game and our players and coach but honestly, although i may be dissapointed, pissed off, or perplexed at times by the team, i have no real control over the level of my caring about the team. It’s alreadly hardwired in.
