BEVERLY HILLS (MI) –- I’ll plead guilty as charged: when it comes to Flyer hoops, I am an unabashed, card-carrying, eternal, cockeyed optimist. Back in the day, when a couple of highly ranked Notre Dame teams came to our house during my years in the Gem City, I didn’t think that UD could win, I knew that they would. When Donald Smith, Mike Sylvester and company took defending National Champ UCLA to 3 OTs, I believed they could win and except for an ill-timed time-out by Coach Donoher, they would have. In 1984, I picked the Flyers to go to the Elite Eight and made a couple hundred bucks in a big NCAA pool because of them. I drank the Jim O’Brien Kool Aid, particularly after UD went to the Big Dance in his first year. I believed that guys like Wes Coffee and Kenny Branch were as good as JOB thought they were –- okay, so I was way wrong about him and them. I thought OP was the man for the job of undoing all of the damage that OB had wreaked on the program and my faith was rewarded. When Purnell moved on to greener pastures, I wrote in an FTS immediately after that TK should “go out and find the best coach in America” and he did just that in hiring Brian Gregory.

Flash forward to today and the dilemma/enigma/quandary that we all find ourselves facing as Flyer Faithful: the magical season we had all been waiting for, the elusive ‘next year’ had finally arrived and now, in what seems like only an instant, it appears to have evaporated.

Is it over?

Hell, no.

Are we gonna be ranked when the polls come out later this week?

Probably not. But so what?

This reversal of fortune is enough to test even the most faith-filled of the Flyer Faithful, but let’s take stock of the current situation that UD faces, shall we?

They have quality wins against big-time, ranked foes like Louisville and Pitt, plus road wins vs. always tough hombres such as Miami and Holy Cross.

And then there are these last 3 games. Let’s face facts: UD has been playing minus three potential starters in these tilts, not two. BRob has been a sick puppy and when you combine his struggles with the absence of Charles Little and Chris Wright, UD faces a situation that no other nationally ranked team, including UNC or current #1 Memphis could possibly withstand.

Let’s take our friends to the south: let’s say we subtract Drew Lavender, Josh Duncan and Stanley Burrell and see how well they perform, shall we? Probably about the same as the Flyers have.

The hallmark of a tournament-worthy team is not how they handle success — did you happen to notice how everybody on the team seemed to get along when they were winning? It’s how they will handle this adversity that will ultimately determine the true mettle of the guys who don the Red and Blue.

As much as I am a “the glass is half-full” kinda guy, there are obviously others of the opposite persuasion and they have crawled out of the woodwork where they have been hiding since the first half of the Miami game.

A sample of the UD Pride MB headlines:

“No Wright, No Little, Sick Roberts = Worst A-10 And A Laughing Stock!”

“What’s gone wrong?”

“BG?”

“Is it OK to panic a bit now?”

And my personal favorite:

“Team misses James Cripee.”

Which somehow manages to combine identifying a player who barely contributed and who hasn’t played for UD in a year and a half as the source of UD’s problems, with the added bonus of misspelling his name.

Please.

The DDN says Charles will be practicing this week; BRob is gonna get healthy and everything I have read about CW tells me that he is absolutely going to bust his ass to get back ASAP.

The “glass is half-empty” crowd is holding court for the time being. Enjoy the doom and gloom while you can, all you nasty Nostradami. For now, you’re right, the sky is falling.

But this bad patch of road isn’t going to last forever. The Flyers will climb back, trust me.

So just when should we expect everyone to be fully healthy, greased and ready to kick ass?

How about, oh, let’s say, February 24th?

That’s it “From The Swamp.”

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