Hapless Iowa

I'm rarely confident as a fan. We've been over this. We can be up by 14 with seven minutes left (in a football game or a basketball game) and I'll still be nervous. I've just always watched sports with a "we'd better not blow this" mentality. I'll start to get more confident, and then something like Penn State 2024 will happen (we blew a 7 point lead in the final 35 seconds to lose in regulation) and I'm right back to "I'm going to worry until the final buzzer sounds."

I'm the same way with predicting wins. If I'm at some bar, and there are fans from two teams chirping back and forth, I'm never a "we're gonna whoop your ass tomorrow" guy. If you've read me for long enough you know I rarely speak boldly about expecting a win. Even against, say, Morehead State last year in the 1st round game, I was still all "this Riley Minix guy can really shoot it." I never want to get trapped under any "we win this one going away" statements.

Which is why my belief that we own Iowa is so much fun. If you've seen me use the term "hapless Iowa" this last months, here's where it sources to. I ended the Where Do We Stand article on February 11th like this: