Dead and Gone: Men's Basketball (and their fans)

Unlike T.I.'s single which chronicles his personal metamorphosis during his house arrest, the men's basketball faces the fact that their chances of not being the worst team in the nation and having worst season in school history are pretty much dead and gone. I realized this months ago with the poor shooting percentages, the lack of defense, the ever revolving injury list, and a coach who resigned only go to the NBA shortly after; I stopped caring and believing. With the embarrassing loss against Pepperdine Saturday, it's pretty much a lock now that the men's basketball team is on its way to the record books, but for all the wrong reasons.

Photo: Courtney Toomey/Loyolan

There's another thing that's dead and gone as well are the fans (or lack thereof). The Pepperdine game is one of the biggest games of the year for LMU and that shows in attendance. With the exception last season, since 2002-03 season, on average about 3,000+ of us pack Gersten where the largest attendance was in the 2006-07 season with 4,005. Now I wouldn't exactly say we packed Gersten this past Saturday because only 2,385 of us bothered to show up (I was not one of them). Correlate this with our atrocious record, this will makes sense because honestly who wants to see a losing team? To add, a losing team that has a greater chance becoming a laughing stock than a decent finish. With six games left in the season, this begs the question: Have we left our team for dead and gone? The answer is a resounding yes and hope that next season doesn't suck as much.

In the meantime, you're better off watching women's basketball, where they have a winning record.

---Faiza Mokhtar