There’s a weird feeling I get at the end of basketball season. It’s the only sport I really follow, so I’m left with a kind of emptiness. It’s probably best described as “what now?” 29 other fan groups will have to deal with that same feeling while one gets to ride the high of a championship for a few months.
I got into basketball mostly in college. My school didn’t have a football team, so basketball was the main thing we had to look forward to. And we weren’t great so I always had this same feeling to look forward to as well. In the last few years, we’ve made it in the tournament a couple of times and I’ve been able to stretch my college sports fan muscles a bit, but the Mavericks have always been my best bet for sports enthusiasm.
Now it’s over for the year. I had my fingers crossed for this first round of the playoffs, but it was always going to be an uphill climb so I wasn’t heartbroken when the final horn sounded. Hope was slowly replaced with measured resignation, and excitement is back on the bench until the fourth quarter of the year. My sports brain get to take a hiatus, which is fine with me.
Thanks for the fun this year Mavericks, and we’ll do it all again soon!
Matt Stoker
