Take down the net.  Put away the whistle.  Deflate the rock.  Thus ends the Virginia basketball season, and my student basketball career. It’s been a rough season indeed. What started off as a promising and downright inspiring victory over Arizona on the road at the beginning of the year was followed up with disappointment as we saw our team plagued with injuries (most notably, Tunji Soroye and Lars I-Don’t-Need-A-Last-Name).

But then Lars comes back and our team shows a little bit of life at the end of the season, turning a trainwreck into 4 Ws out of the last 6 games to end the regular season, and playing in the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) to end up with an overall winning 17-16 record. Alright, fine. The CBI is not exactly the most prestigious of tournaments. Alright, fine. Unless you read my site or are a fan of one of the mid-major schools that “made it” to the tournament, you’ve probably never even heard of the CBI.

I don’t care what you think about the CBI. The CBI, no matter how you slice it, gave Sean Singletary, Ryan Pettinella, and Adrian Joseph one last chance to play.  And more importantly (for me at least) it gave us, the fans, one last chance to enjoy watching them play before they move on to bigger and better things, whether it’s the NBA, Development League, Europe, or something non-basketball altogether.

In any event, are we all that disappointed in this year’s season?  Yes, last year we were a 4 seed in the NCAA tournament.  Yes, this year we ended with a poor (I am not even going to give numbers here) ACC (and overall) record.  But look at our losses.  They’ve been (a) with an injury-plagued team, (b) within two points, or (c) in overtime.  Sure, a couple blowouts like Xavier (Elite Eight team) and Clemson (a 5 seed), but honestly, what did people really expect?  We all know we got pretty lucky with an easy schedule last year, and while this year’s schedule was not particularly taxing within the conference (not to mention a few difficult OOC games), it was certainly a step above last year’s.

I’m not saying we should all be elated with this year’s outcome.  I’m saying that we shouldn’t consider this year a miserable failure.  Yes, we want conference and national championships.  But Virginia is just not yet at that caliber.  One year, hopefully.

Anyway, at the last home game, in a disappointing loss against Bradley (they are apparently in Illinois, who knew?), I retired the dry erase board at the JPJA.  A sad moment in Hooville (or at least, in my mind) indeed.  But we knew the day would come that I’d have to oh, I dunno, graduate?  Leave Charlottesville?  Move on with my life?  Boo.  Weak.