Despite how much I care about every team every year (I pretty much get emotionally involved in every game we have and am up pacing around my house for the last 10 minutes of any remotely close game, jumping around and fist pumping after any score), ... there was just something different about this team that made this loss so hard to take. Which is strange when it's composed of so many non-4 year players.
With the composure they've kept after so many tough losses yet still finding a way to make it to the tourney... the best way I can describe it is that it's like the hero of a movie who just has the one bad thing after another happen, then gets screwed over by the villain who some how cheated or framed the hero. Yet the hero overcomes all odds to put himself in the possition to take on some insurmountable challenge in an attempt to win/fix everything/save the day...
Then just like the movies, there's a hot start in the final contest where it seems like the hero has a chance, only for it to all fall apart to the point where there's no hope (down 13 with under 6 to go). Then some crazy miracle happens and they come back anyway and then at the last second the hero wins and it's a happy ending.
Only instead, as Rocky is about to deliver the final knockout punch to a dazed/semi unconscious Ivan Drago, the referee pauses the match to check if Rocky was wearing brass knuckles because there's no way Rocky came back from such a beat down by pure will power. After making a bad call, the ref resumes the match with Ivan who has since recovered (just another unfair hurdle the hero has to come before the big win). The clock ticks down and it looks like the fight is going into another round when Ivan throws a haymaker knocks Rocky out. Game over... go home.
It's just not the way it's supposed to end. There's no justice suffering through all of that only to get jobbed one last time.
