Sports commentary site Deadspin made fun of our men’s basketball team’s Friday loss to Cornell in a Monday post. The reason we can’t beat Ivy League schools? Too many white players. “They look like the JCC winter-league champions, or maybe the Indiana state basketball champs from 1954,” the blog says.

I’m not going to comment on the racial nature of the post – I’ll leave that to The Daily’s Zach Silka , who called it “very superficial (yet very hilarious).” (Yep, just as hilarious as your rant a few weeks ago telling Tyrell Sutton to transfer to Penn State, but I won’t go there.)
But the team picture posted by Deadspin revealed a lot more to me than a striking lack of color. First, here’s a screenshot of the post:

Now here’s a closeup of part of the first row -

On the left, we have the “star player” of this year’s squad, senior Tim Doyle, beaming like he just won the lottery. I mean seriously, you’d think Vedran Vukusic is miraculously coming back for tonight’s game against DePaul. I guess when Doyle’s not whining about the ‘Cats being underrated or getting held to ZERO points in the second half against freakin’ Cornell, he must be really happy or something.

But I think it’s great Timmy smiles in photos – why shouldn’t he? Doyle’s the “go-to guy” on a Big Ten basketball team, he’s getting a great degree and if the team stinks, who cares? Everybody will just blame the Princeton offense or high academic standards. (Let’s forget about Duke and Stanford, both of which are more academically prestigious.)

This team’s problem is not its lack of racial diversity. It’s that the players and coaches on it – regardless of whether they’re white, black, or purple – are not held accountable for their laughable lack of effort. Name another school in the conference where a loss to Cornell wouldn’t have incited riots.

In his column today, Silka did make a very valid point – with this year’s pathetic schedule, the ‘Cats can still plummet even further. The Wheaton College game is but one month away, folks.

But keep on smiling, Timmy.