On anticipation and disappointment

To say that the college basketball season left me extremely disappointed would be an understatement of seismic proportions. The Wisconsin Badgers showed as much life as Anna Nicole during the tournament after having a stellar season. Instead of being hyped and using the losses to Michigan State and Ohio State to motivate themselves, they puttered into the tournament, almost losing in embarrassing fashion to 15 seed Texas A&M – Corpus Christi. You’d think that scare would have been enough to put some pep in their step, but instead the Badgers came out looking even more lackluster in the first half of their second round game. Mounting a major comeback from 20 or so down may be possible against A&M – CC but was absolutely not going to be possible the further along in the tournament they got.

After achieving the program’s first-ever #1 ranking, the team promptly lost to Michigan State and, it seems, the season was over from there. There was absolutely no way I saw this coming. With Coach Bo Ryan’s attitude and the ethic of this team, I would have never imagined that we would end up the joke team of this year’s tournament, early exit and all. After all the hype about maybe getting a one seed, we went and proved exactly how unworthy we were.

Add to that an extremely disappointing and not-so-mad March and I’m left feeling like one of the teams whose bubble burst come tournament time.

And I had such high hopes. College football season was nothing if not uplifting and surprising for Badger fans. We were all settled in for a nice rebuilding season full of low expectations and forgiveness. Instead Bret Bielema stepped in exactly where Barry stepped out and we had the season that few had dreamed of. To top it off, we won our second straight bowl game over an SEC opponent.

So here I am, needing some sports rehab. A fan pick-me-up. And my only option on the immediate horizon?

The Milwaukee Brewers.

Now any other season I’d make a smartass remark, preferably about how laughable a thought it would be that the Brewers could be the answer to my losing-team woes.

But this season has the makings of being so remarkably different from any season since my birth (the last time the Brewers saw a World Series)

Conversely, this season has the makings of one ginormous letdown. A letdown so big that after it’s over I could be joining the hordes of Milwaukeeans who bemoan our pitching, our injuries and our coaching, all in a time-honored and well-rehearsed play meant to make us feel better about the fact that once again our team failed to reach the potential it showed.

I’m waffling between wildly excited, cautiously optimistic and (thus far) unfounded doubt. I know cautiously optimistic is the way to go, but it’s just no fun. I want to be crazy excited. I want to be planning for the playoffs.

I do not want to be worrying about if we’re even going to finish above .500.

Besides, it’s not like any other team in the state is drumming up anything remotely related to enthusiasm.

The Packers made less moves than a nerd at the prom this off-season. Free agency hasn’t been pretty and I can’t remember a time I’ve been this defeated by a team before the season ever started. I’m not sure the Packers front office understands that Brett Favre isn’t Superman. It really doesn’t matter how good he is if he has no one to hand off to, no one to throw to and no one blocking for him.

But football season is months away and I’m too giddy about the Brewers to let that sort of things get me down.

For now I’m just excited about attending my first game tomorrow and kicking the pants off the hated Chicago Cubs.