First let me thank y’all for the kind comments. I really appreciate it.

As painful as the loss was Saturday it still wasn’t the most painful in my basketball memory. That pain (pain being relative) was January 10th, 1983. Tigers fans reached the pinnacle of college basketball for the first time in the school’s history. That night the Tigers went into Blacksburg, VA and lost to VA Tech. Five hours after the greatest feeling we experienced the pain of being knocked off the top of the pile. It hurts, a lot. It is a miserable place for a fan knowing that you are just waiting for the new poll to come out and your team will drop off the highest spot. I remember that gut wrenching feeling. We Tigers fans know what the Tennessee fans are going through. And now I can smile again.

The Tigers should regain the #1 spot in the AP poll next week. Unless UNC loses this week they will ascend to the top of the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. If the Tigers take care of business for the rest of the way they should go into the tournament #1 in country and the overall #1 seed. And I’ll tell you why.

UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas all probably have another loss coming at some point. The Tigers should wrap the season and conference tournament at 33-1. That should be at least 3 games better than any of the above mentioned teams. Given the Tigers OOC schedule, the fact they are the only top 5 team not to lose to a team outside of the top 5 and the record is enough to give Memphis the overall #1.

Another loss by the Vols will cost them a #1 seed. Then again, they may actually get the #1 in the East. The problem will be that they’ll probably see Duke or North Carolina in the state of NC. There’s just something wrong with that. The NCAA shouldn’t have a #1 play a #2 in their home state during the tournament. Memphis has had to do it the last two years.

It is seasons like this that create fans for the future. My 21-year-old daughter who would have nothing to do with sports is really starting to get into the Tigers and basketball. Last night we were watching the Vandy-Tenn game. Vandy was being pressed and out of her mouth came, “Come on, hurry up and get it across the time line.” If you know basketball you know what the time line is. But it is one thing that I never thought I’d hear my daughter would say. Now to get her over her phobia of crowds.

A lesson can be learned in by the last week for all fans, one game doesn’t define a season. A season is like taking a test. The Tigers are in the middle of their possible 40 question test. They have answered 26 of the 27 questions right to date. The test has 4 more questions before the bonus quiz. Then after the bonus quiz you have another set of bonus questions. You get to answer another with each correct answer. In the end, we’ll see how the Tigers do on the test. But right now they have the highest score in the class and are looking at being the valedictorian if they can answer 13 more questions correctly.