With last night’s loss, it’s pretty clear that NC State will finish 4-12 in ACC play, with no post-season. We will finish last if Virginia wins one of its final four games.
Even so, I managed to watch last night’s game with a relaxed and calm demeanor. I don’t remember so much as a “damn it” coming from my mouth, or a scowl on my face. My 6-year old got pretty exasperated, but I assured her that everything was fine, and I was pretty used to it [losing] by now. This got knowing smiles from the other 2 people on my row.
It made me think about the “stages of grief” – I know almost nothing about psychology, but I do remember Lisa Simpson talking to Bart about it. I thought there were four, but turns out there are five. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Thanks, Wikipedia!
There was lots of denial during the non-conference games. Sure, I could see that there were problems, but we worked through them to win the Old Spice Classic, and swept the key stretch of games (Davidson, Cincy, Seton Hall) to mostly make up for debacles against New Orleans and East Carolina.
Then, anger. It definitely flared up when we lost to ECU, but that stage didn’t really begin until the Clemson game. For me, it peaked right after the home loss to Georgia Tech, which I noted was completely unacceptable. Many of my fellow Wolfpackers were still in denial, but here’s what I said:
Forget this happy crap. We just LOST AT HOME to an 8-9 team. We committed 18 turnovers and let our opponent shoot 59 percent from the field. That’s inexcusable. Full rant will be posted later.
I’m sorry, but I’ve had it up to here with sucking or near-sucking in every revenue sport, almost every single damned year.
Time would prove me right, with the Bees sitting at 4-8 in ACC play, 11-15 overall.
Next came bargaining. I point to my “path to 8-8” post. It seemed logical on its face, and laid out an “acceptable” path to make everything OK. Maybe not what we’d hoped in the preseason, but things would be mostly back on track. Was I fooling myself? Damn right. I didn’t even entertain the possibility of what actually happened over the next 6 games.
Then came depression – second half of the Maryland game and the meltdown at Boston College. Excruciating games to watch. It wasn’t mathematically impossible to get back on my “path”, but I knew in my gut that it wasn’t going to happen. There was still some anger, but mostly I just hung my head. I wrote off the 2007-08 season, and subconsciously started laying the groundwork for Stage Five.
And there I was at the RBC last night – fully immersed in acceptance. Let us know how your process is going in the comments.
