One last ride

Dearest readers:\nThe author would like to apologize for the shoddy and incoherent work you are about to read. I am a bit flustered after spending the past 26 hours traveling in some way, shape or form only to return to Bloomington and find that I feel like Doug E. Doug after he walks out of the refrigerator in "Cool Runnings." \nBut I'm hurting for cash, so I decided to produce this column.\nSpring break started in bitter fashion. IU's loss to Illinois in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament made this the first year since 1985 (the same year Marty McFly went back to the future) the Hoosiers weren't invited to the NCAA Tournament. An NCAA bracket without IU is like an exit on a southern interstate without a Waffle House -- it just doesn't seem possible.\nThe game itself summed up the season perfectly -- with spots of brightness washed away in the end by disappointment. The biggest thing I picked up from the game was the performance of Illinois guard Deron Williams, who personally dashed the Hoosiers postseason aspirations with one clutch shot after another. \nAs the Illini march into the Sweet 16, it seems more than likely IU may have recruited the wrong guard out of The Colony, Texas. \nBut I have had enough of disappointment. After watching nearly every IU basketball and football game this past year, what I really needed was a vacation. In fact, I needed to leave the country altogether.\nSo I packed my bags and drove to Florida and floated to the Bahamas with my friends Justin, Ben and Emily. I needed a break from sports as much as I did from schoolwork.\nMy first cut-off was failing to watch the Tournament Selection Show, which I have made a yearly tradition. Instead, I spent Sunday evening in Florida playing football with some random 12-year-old kids who were quoting lines from "The Chappelle's Show," including "I'm Rick James, bitch!"\nMonday, my fix for the tournament started kicking in anyway. I at least had to check the paper to see the brackets, and watch ESPN to see what they were saying.\nWe reached the Bahamas Tuesday after a seasickness inducing boat ride, and once again, I forgot about basketball. The place was too nice -- and so were the people. \nOne of the hotel workers even asked me, "Hey mon, has anyone ever told you you look like Tom Brady?"\nI said something like "Oh, all the time," but in the back of my mind I just thought, "This dude must have been smoking some powerful reefer."\nOther highlights included playing catch with Clemson's backup quarterback, Will Proctor and getting smoked by members of Georgia Southern's women's volleyball team in a beach game -- with my own personal highlight coming when I dove after a ball and hit it directly into my own face.\nDespite the fact I was in paradise, the basketball dork in me showed through Thursday, as I was pumped for March Madness. I even woke up early so I could go to an internet café to make sure I filled out my brackets in time for my friends' pools. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't, as Oklahoma State is my only Final Four team left dancing.\nYet I still managed to sneak peeks of great games like the ones between UAB and Washington or DePaul and Dayton while drinking out of a coconut, enjoying college basketball's version of paradise from paradise itself.\nAnd so, after two years, my time of writing about IU basketball has drawn to a close, even if I really didn't write about it at all in this column. It has been as down a year, as there ever has been in modern IU history, and with the strong likelihood top recruit Josh Smith will go pro, there will be even more grimacing in the immediate future.\nBut it has been an honor to write about one of the most storied and grand programs in college basketball. I wouldn't trade going to IU for anything else. Just ask the security guard who kicked people out of my hotel room after we received a noise violation for singing the IU fight song too loudly.\nAnd if anyone from Purdue tries to razz you about IU's fortunes this year, just remind them to come back and talk when five NCAA title banners are hanging from Mackey Arena.