By Scottie Bricker
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 11, 1998

May the winning commence

What more could you ask for from a weekend in the City of Angels?

In its shocking 91-90 overtime loss at Southern California Thursday, the Arizona men's basketball team learned more in those 45 minutes than it had in any of the contests during its impressive 18-game winning streak leading up to the upset.

Although not a single player or coach in their right mind on any collegiate team in the country will admit that a loss can be a good thing, the defeat at the hands of the Trojans could not have come at a better time.

Winning is wonderful and you don't bring home the gold, shiny hardware if you can't win, but believe it or not, winning all the time causes nothing more than complacency and all-around lackadaisical effort on and off the court.

The cocky, king-of-the-universe swagger that comes from a string of victories is detrimental to postseason motivation.

However, a loss this late in the season is like taking Hershey privileges away from a chocoholic - it only makes you want it more. Salivating and desperate, your entire focus turns to regaining the sweet, satisfying feeling you have grown so accustomed to knowing.

Plus, having to watch 12 other players celebrate raucously at your expense tears at your insides and makes you more ill than liver and onions. Take last year's final weekend for the Wildcats.

Who can forget the then-pitiful way the Bay Area trip turned a standout Pacific 10 Conference season into a disappointing fifth seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Then, as if Lute Olson swiftly stuck his squeaky, clean dress shoes in the collective behinds of his players, Arizona rattled off six title-hungry wins en route to winning the team's first-ever National Championship.

And so I was pulling for the Trojans when, with 2.3 seconds on the clock, they inbound the ball to seldom-used Adam Spanich, 23 feet left of the basket.

Spanich threw up a prayer, and as Arizona's good luck would have it, the hymn was answered and the City of Angels, and the rest of the conference for that matter, rejoiced and sang the praises of Henry Bibby's players and their courageous effort.

I know it to be true because I was one of them.

Now I fear for the rest of the country as the Wildcats prepare to release their own version of March Madness on the field of 64.

Just ask the UCLA Bruins, who were the first victims to fall in the Wildcats' torrid, hell-raising path in Sunday's high-intensity UA victory.

Many more opponents will fall in the next three weekends to the experienced, battle-tested group from Southern Arizona.

The losing shall now cease to exist.

May the winning commence.

See you in San Antonio.

Scottie Bricker covers softball for the Arizona Daily Wildcat and was wearing his North Carolina shorts and shooting shirt during Thursday's Arizona-USC contest. Let the Madness begin.