Murray State loses, but it's a long race

Don’t these Racers know it’s actually a marathon?

What’s worse than getting picked in March to win it all is, as a mid-major, getting picked to go to the Final Four, like Cinderella RSVPing to the Castle, in early February. There are a lot of ways to lose, but the worst way is when everyone picked you because you were the rabbit in the race.

Murray State now sits an awful, atrocious, even ghastly 23-1 on the season. They’re last of the unbeaten to fall, and the symbolic cork-bottle popper for the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers team. The Racers looked beaten down, both on the scoreboard and across the faces of numerous players, as they lost to Tennessee State 72-68. (The TSU Tigers are a respectable 16-10 by the way.)

But this is what they should want at this point of the season.

The Racers will drop to about #20 in the rankings, but their popular stock will fall even further down the list, possibly into glorious obscurity. Staying under the radar, even while possibly cruising to their Ohio Valley Conference title and easily getting into the NCAA Tournament. You just don’t want to be the team the middle school teachers and mechanics pick as their sleeper.

Murray State can’t play the same type of game as the big name schools; they’ll have to take a different route. It’s journey that will lead them away from the hype and hoopla that could be their downfall. Losing ground now isn’t the end; it’s a reposition of sorts that could fundamentally assist in their travels amid madness in March.

The Racers can make a run but they don’t want to be looking back and realizing that sneaking up from the back of the field, from the rear of the pack so to speak, might have been the best strategy the whole time.

“I don’t want to be that guy mumbling into his drink at the bar,” as famously spoken by, none other than, Billy Murray.