Commentary: Walking beside the Braun Bandwagon

By Casey Michel     1/29/09 6:00pm

My legs are sore. All this climbing on, hopping off, struggling back up, it's wearing on me - making me stiff and disjointed, tired and upset. Yes, deciding my place on the bandwagon of Rice men's basketball is getting to be a chore.

This 2008-09 season, inaugurated with the bright lights of a new facility and the honeymoon confidence of a new coach, has become more up-and-down than a professional bungee-jumper, more unsteady than a fat kid on a balance beam, and more unpredictable than Paris Hilton's Facebook status. And as the season keeps rolling, the bandwagon bandwidth keeps moving like an accordion, swelling and shrinking with each passing week.

Before the season dawned, Athletic Director Chris Del Conte had scored a hiring coup with head coach Ben Braun. Fans were ecstatic. Boosters were contributing. Students were, at least, no longer entirely apathetic. Tudor Fieldhouse wafted that new-stadium scent, a mixture of lacquered wood, freshly-poured colas and Willis Wilson's leftover mustache conditioner.

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We began the season with a rollicking 78-74 home heartbreaker against Portland State University. Thoughts of another winless season in conference flew out the door, and rightfully so, as the Vikings were members of the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Rice then took two of three on the road, instantly bringing us within one of our win total of last year. We were .500, and we couldn't have been happier.

The couple losses that followed were to be expected - hey, we were still a team that returned three starters from last year's 3-27 squad - but three more wins and near-upsets of No. 4 Oklahoma and undefeated Texas A&M ended 2008 on a high note.

The bandwagon was going strong, strapped with a 12-cylinder engine and rims big enough to make Chamillionaire jealous.

But then Richmond keyed our doors with a 31-point win. Then Tulane slashed our tires with a conference-opening 11-point victory. Fortunately, SMU provided a respite, a repairing sigh of relief, when we downed them by 12 at home. Our season looked up once again, for we would no longer have a goose egg in our conference record.

That's the last peak we can see in the rearview mirror. After that, the Owls lost three straight by an average of 30 points. Three-zero. 10 three-pointers, if you like. Granted, two of these losses came against C-USA contenders Memphis and UAB, but a 25-point loss to UCF? At home? With all but one player, forward Lucas Kuipers, ready to go?

And even though we hung with a Tulane team for 39 minutes and 59.8 seconds, an infuriating implosion kept us from doing what most high school teams could have done, i.e. beating the Green Wave.

Pass the defibrillator, please.

The bandwagon no longer has an overheated transmission or a busted windshield. It now has a complete structural breakdown. That's why my feet are now planted on the ground, with little more than a skeptical eye left on the ride.

Maybe I'm expecting too much. Maybe the glow of the Texas Bowl and the residual pride of the College World Series have upped my expectations across the board of Rice athletics. Maybe I'm unfairly associating Braun's gang with the women's basketball team, which is currently threatening the men's dominance in the "winless in conference" category.

But then I remember that men's tennis is an improbable 7-0, that the volleyball squad made the NCAA tournament and that the women's cross country team finished 22nd in the nation.

Rice athletics are clearly not accustomed to failure. Thus, so much was pegged on this season.

I know the fault doesn't lie with the head. These players were not Braun's, and he should not be held accountable for everything that transpires over this season. However, he let us take a peek at his talents with our rushes against the Sooners and the Aggies, and he let us get our hopes up by bringing the best out of this motley crew. Had we not put a scare into Oklahoma, had we not trounced SMU in our first home conference match-up, last Saturday's 78- 40 loss to UAB would not have made me double over in agonizing pain.

Braun needs to make a decision: Either win with what you've got, or play for the future and leave the bandwagon in the garage. He needs to whip Bryan Beasley into a competent point guard, or he needs to give Connor Frizzelle, the team's top freshman, the minutes. He needs to retune the strokes of Cory Pfleiger and Cliff Ghoram, or he needs to throw Emerson Herndon and Nate Schwarze into the fire. He needs to shape Rodney Foster into the leader we want, or he needs to unleash Suleiman Braimoh upon our opponents.

I'm waiting for Braun's decisions. I'm wavering by the bandwagon, ready to go either way as the season's final stretch begins.

I want our coach to determine our course, so that my weary legs can finally rest.

Casey Michel is a Brown College junior.

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