sports are amazing. they really and truly are. One minute, you can be rolling along, seemingly invincible. Then, in the blink of an eye, everything can change. During this college basketball season, i have had a first hand account of how true this is. I am a freshman at Oklahoma Christian University, here in Edmond, and i am one of the program assistants for the men's basketball team. My job doesn't come with any glory, but thats ok with me. I do whatever is needed of me at practice, i film the home games, and on road trips, i sit down on the bench and help with towels and water for the players. It's pretty fun, plus it has the benefits of getting all sorts of free team gear and going on road trips for free. Our season started out great. We started out ranked #16 in the pre-season NAIA top 25. After rolling through our first 4 games, we played our first conference game on November 23rd at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, OK. It was a grueling game. We ended up winning 102-100 after quadruple overtime. After that game, we continued to roll, and ended up at 14-0, and ranked #4 in the country. Then, on January 7th, we played at home against Southern Nazarene University, one of our biggest rivals. SNU came out firing, and had an 11 point lead at halftime. i was a little concerned, because we weren't playing well, but we had also been a second half team, so i didn't read too much into it. We came out in the second half and continued to play terrible. Everyone at the game was stunned as SNU expanded their lead to 27 points. We didn't look anything like the team who had started out 14-0, and certainly did not look like the fourth best team in the country. Finally, we made a run and got it down to six points, but it wasn't enough. We ended up losing by 15. After that, we bounced back with a win by 25 on the road, and everyone thought we had our swagger back, and that the SNU game was just "the one bad game that you want to get out of your system". Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that that is the case. Last night, we played Oklahoma City University, one of our other huge rivals. Same story. Sluggish first half, double digit deficit at half time. Slow start to the second half, but this time we never even made a serious run. The smallest margin in the second half was 15. I guess this shows the real parity of sports though. It doesn't matter how good you are, or think you are. On any given night, any one can beat anyone. You see it happen every year. Upsets happen. The mark of a good team is how they bounce back from one upset, or from a tough stretch. They don't let it get in their heads. Good teams go out and bust their butts in practice to get their edge back. Hopefully, Oklahoma Christian University will be able to do that. There's still a lot of basketball to be played this season, and no one wants to completely crash and burn after such a great start. As the old saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. It's time to buckle down and show some toughness