Weekly Exercise in Superfan Futility

It seems like only yesterday we stepped up, if only briefly, from the ignominy of futility to the comparative glory of mediocrity. I think we all remember the words of an unknown but masterfully understated undergraduate, who opined via posterboard, “That Just Happened”. Now that we’ve tasted the sweet, sweet nectar of almost being good enough to get hammered by a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament (tastes a little like slightly overripe avocado), we’ll stop at nothing to have it again*.

After a lackluster, though probably predictable opening weekend in the dreary midwest, the 0-2 William and Mary Tribe return to bucolic Williamsburg to host a pair of out-of-conference tilts. And G:TB picks up where we left off as the internet’s 3rd or 4th leading purveyor of obscure W&M hoops previews and arcana.

Wednesday, November 19 – Norfolk State @ William and Mary

Get a load of Norfolk State's logo. Unless I miss my guess, that's supposed to be a female Spartan in full battle regalia there on the right. That's a historical inaccuracy of epic proportion. And there's nothing that fires up William and Mary kids more than historical inaccuracies, except maybe grammatical errors. In an homage to NSU's most famous alum, the Tribe breaks out the Venus Flytrap defense and beats the Spartans by 15.

Saturday, November 22 – Navy @ William and Mary

David Robinson’s not walking through that door. Neither is his brother, Chuck, who wasn’t nearly as good. Vernon Butler isn’t walking through that door, and if he did, I wouldn't recognize him. The Middies lost to W&M's conference brethren Towson by 18 to open their season. This is another one Danny Sumner, David Schneider, Peter Stein, and the boys should win easily.

Sumner's the only Tribe player averaging double figures after two games, and even he's only shooting 42.3% from the floor - which is admittedly better than the team's overall 40.6% mark. Newcomer and Arkansas transfer Sean McCurdy's dropped 8 dimes to date, but turned the ball over 10 times. The Tribe's only connecting on 26.3% of its 3-point attempts while yielding a 48.5% rate to their opponents. We're gonna chalk all these bleak numbers up to small sample size and assume that the good guys right the ship this week at home.

* - Overstated for effect, as a) we actually have no bearing on whether we get to taste anything in this metaphor, and b) there are probably limits to how far we’d go to taste this (again, metaphorical) nectar. Maybe not for Whitney, though, he’s pretty much a slave to his impulses.