The finality of a season's end is always powerful, whether the team was simply playing out the

string or it was deep into a postseason run. Ultimately, in college basketball, only one team

out of 68 will win the national championship. Just based on raw numbers, one divided by 68 is a 1.47%

chance. Yet, I do really believe that each of those other 67 teams think they can,

and maybe even think they will, win that national championship. And the why is because we hear

it all the time. It is one game at a time. You don't think about the championship game in the

round of 64. You think about

beating that team in front of you. Everything is dedicated to scoring more points than your opponent

for 40 minutes. If you do that, another team comes your way. If you do that, you keep going on and

on it. It's just the athlete and the coach mentality, stringing together six,

and you're the national champs. So then once that season-ending loss hits, the clock hits zero,

then what? What do you do? What do you say? What can you say? The start of off-season

workouts for this season started almost 12 months ago.

Think further back to the recruiting layers. Eli Brooks's Michigan journey started back in the

middle of last decade when his recruiting process was unfolding. The fingerprints on this season

come from moments, conversations, workouts, practices, and

ultimately, over the last five months or so games that are impossible to all remember.

And they fade as the present keeps hitting you squarely in the face.

Like so many in my profession, I was a fan before I became a broadcaster.

My fandom led me down this road, and to me that's a prerequisite of doing the job that I do,

is to be a fan.

Fans like me, of course, disappointed by Thursday's result.

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