Go, Big Blue – straight into oblivion
The last time Michigan enjoyed Final Four status, its team had single-handedly changed the college basketball dress code and its starters had earned their own media nickname: the Fab Five. That was 1993, two decades ago. It’s also the last time the Wolverines did something truly cool.
I married a Michigan State Spartan, and in doing so, committed to a lifetime of Wolverine-loathing.
Needless to say, I prefer Michigan losing rather than cutting nets, but you can’t win them all. And you better believe an “L” for Michigan is a “W” for my house.
You could call it being a good wife. You could also call it being a good fan. Either way, at this point in the NCAA Tournament my only investment is to root against the boys from Ann Arbor. How does that saying go? An enemy of an enemy is my friend — as long as they kick the crap out of Michigan? Something like that.
Save the whole “the conference comes first” speech. I can understand that position, but I can’t respect it, and certainly can’t practice it.
Sure, favorable standings for another in-conference team fare better for the conference as a whole, which can only help your team in the end. I get it. But to root for a rival, to clap in unison with their fans when they score, to groan when their opponents dunk on them, to smile when they smile is nothing short of team treason.
It’s the ultimate betrayal. It makes everything you stood for during the regular season look, feel and taste insincere. In short, it’s something only fake fans do.
Let’s get a few things out of the way. I graduated college a Utah Ute. My mom is a Boise State Bronco. I married a Michigan State Spartan. There you have my college teams, in order of allegiance. You can add to that list anyone playing Brigham Young, Idaho or Michigan.
Full disclosure: I watch more Utah and Boise State games when they play on a field, not a court. Most of the basketball games I watch feature green-and-white uniforms, a student section called the Izzone and a big cartoonish Spartan jumping on a trampoline at halftime. It’s been that way for years now.
But when I got word two years ago that some kid named Jimmer was in Provo, knocking down 3s from downtown Salt Lake City, my rivalry radar flashed a code red. That the Runnin’ Utes had a horrible season in 2011 only made BYU’s presence in the NCAA Tournament more stomach-turning. Thank God, the Sour Sixteen is as far as they got.
It’s not so much that I don’t want to see them win. Don’t be silly. My goodness, what do you think I am? It’s just that I really want to see them lose.
Authentic rivalries are rooted in as much love for one team as they are in hate for another one. Especially if your old classroom photos feature more BYU sweaters than your Utah heart can handle, and if going to work the morning after a rivalry loss meant a lot of counting to 10 before speaking.
Even now, after both teams have left the Mountain West, BYU for the West Coast Conference and Utah for the Pac-12, the sight of Cougars cutting down the nets in an NCAA tourney would bring back too much bad blood to feel happy for the fellow Utah team.
I don’t know how my husband did it last weekend when those two genetic cheaters, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Glenn Robinson III, climbed a ladder with scissors in hand. But I do know he suddenly loves the color orange, pretty red birds and being in a Wichita State of mind.
Any potential enemy of Michigan …
Still, some Spartans will go rogue. They’ll go to the dark side, the blue-and-maize side, even if it’s just for one game. They’ll do it because Charles Barkley’s Big 10 criticism got to them, because No. 1 seed Indiana was supposed to get this far but didn’t, because the Elite Eight for Aaron Craft and the Buckeyes just wasn’t good enough.
They’re not doing it for Michigan, they’ll tell themselves all alone in their bathroom mirrors. They’re doing it for the conference.
They say infidelity among couples can be gauged simply by asking yourself if you would do whatever behavior is in question in the presence of your significant other.
So, I ask any Spartans backing Big Blue, whether out of support of the Big 10 or otherwise: “Would you do it in front of Tom Izzo?”
Doubtful. And that is why the one thing a true MSU fan should want Michigan to do Saturday, that it hasn’t done in 20 years, is call a timeout it doesn’t have. That, and only that, would be just fab.
Contact Xazmin Garza at xgarza@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0477. Follow her on Twitter @startswithanx.