One of my earliest memories dates back 25 years ago, when as a 5-year-old, I stood on the top step of my family\u2019s Tucson home, waiting for my dad to meet me at the bottom of the staircase with good news. Even at that young of an age, Arizona basketball had such a hold on my nervous system that I couldn\u2019t bear to watch the ending of the 2001 national championship game.<\/p>\n
The good news never came, and I went to bed that night with a deep longing in my stomach. The feeling wouldn\u2019t last forever, but it wouldn\u2019t fully go away either.<\/p>\n
Two years later, I remember performing at a school recital the night Arizona played Kansas in the Elite Eight. As I got off stage, my dad had to be the bearer of bad news once again. This wouldn\u2019t be the year.<\/p>\n
A few years later, my family had relocated to Orange County, Calif., where my dad worked as a parks and recreation manager. The Saturday that Arizona faced off against Illinois, I nervously followed him around as he worked until at last, we settled in front of a small, grainy TV in his office.<\/p>\n
We sat there together as Arizona built an insurmountable lead in the second half. Only, at nine years old, I didn\u2019t yet know what the word insurmountable means. The feeling that night was way worse than four years prior, worse really than anything I\u2019d felt up to that point.<\/p>\n
Adults may be able to view basketball at a faster, fuller scale, but I\u2019m convinced that a child\u2019s sensory processing make them feel wins and losses in way that hits a little bit deeper. As a kid, experiencing repeated blows to the heart leaves an indelible scar, the kind you don\u2019t truly age out of.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why for a generation of Arizona basketball followers in my age bracket, there is a particular type of dread that permeates this time of year.<\/p>\n
We were too young\u2014or not even alive\u2014to witness the 1997 national title. Instead, our core memories are built on the devastating losses of the early aughts and the catastrophic endings of 2014 and 2015.<\/p>\n
For the 30 and under crowd, the overwhelming feeling on Saturday wasn\u2019t joy and elation but shock and astonishment. With some numbness mixed in.<\/p>\n
Our whole lives we went to bat for a program that constantly reminded us, yes, we are good, maybe really good, but when it matters, not as good as those guys over there.<\/p>\n
Now those punches don\u2019t land so hard.<\/p>\n
Not only did Arizona slay a 25-year-old dragon, it did so with such precision and such class that there\u2019s not a whole lot else for anyone on the outside to say. As the saying goes, the Wildcats have let their play to do the talking.<\/p>\n
As a result, there\u2019s a whole generation of Arizona fans and alums who get to walk around a little prouder, a little more self-assured than a week ago.<\/p>\n
Those childhood wounds don\u2019t heal, they harden. But as Tommy Lloyd\u2019s team has shown time and again this season, it\u2019s the hardened who prevail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of my earliest memories dates back 25 years ago, when as a 5-year-old, I stood on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[9763,7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-695954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-arizona-basketball","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116341286066496474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}