As Jim Morrison of the Doors sang, in his inimitable drugged-out fashion in “Apocalypse Now” (the ultimate Viet Nam war flick), “This is the end.” Not the end of life as we know it, nor the end of the road or the end of the innocence and it most definitely will never be confused with the end of the world. It’s simply the end of the Flyer basketball season and all in all, it was a pretty damn good one. Let’s be big boys and girls about this, okay? As Flyer Fans, we came into this season knowing that this team had limitations. Sean Finn, while 7’0″ tall, is not the second coming of Dirk Nowitski; KW would be the first to tell you that his game does not pass the ‘look test.’ The bench was a total mystery. Add in a new coach, albeit a well-trained Assistant from a highly successful program and you’ve got what you might call more than a few X factors.

Did this team drive me crazy sometimes? Absolutely. Did they make me smile and beam with pride? That too. In ‘the end’ 24 victories, a Maui Invitational Championship, an A-10 West Championship and a trip to the Big Dance translates to overachieving in my book.

Did the way that ‘the end’ came about make me want to strangle a player as one MB poster suggested or criticize BG’s game plan or divorce myself from the Flyers, as yet another poster was prepared to do? No, no and no.

When the Elder Swampette and I walked out of Chammp’s after the game I said to her “I feel a whole lot better than I did last year at this time.” In 2003 the Flyers came out flat vs. Tulsa and stayed that way and basically never showed up. It was an embarrassment. This year, the guys learned from that mistake and came out and competed — for 50 minutes. You may question the shot selection or the propensity to wait too long to start the offense, but our guys “represented” as the YS likes to say and, as fans, that’s all we can ask of them — an honest effort.

As fans, there isn’t a damn thing we can do about the DePaul game, the NCAAs or the season now. It’s toast. And it’s time to move on. Paraphrasing Stephen Covey, we can’t control what happened, but we can control how we react to it.

I, for one, am extremely excited about what the future portends for this program. I normally agree with the Hometown Coach, but when he says next year’s team will be lucky to break .500 next year, I think he is dead wrong. I am extremely impressed with the quality of recruits that BG and staff were able to attract in a relatively short time. They will be young, that’s a fact. They will make mistakes. But they and the 2 players that BG has yet to sign for the Class of 2009 have the potential to take this program to places it has never been and, as we all know, Flyer Basketball has been to some pretty special places.

That’s what excites me — the adventure into “the great wide open” as Tom Petty called it. Where with this year’s edition of the Flyers, we pretty much knew that 3 guys — RM, KW, and SF — would carry the load, next year who knows? It’s the mystery of it all that entices me and I hope that you will find the prospects of BG’s boys kickin’ butt and takin’ names equally energizing.

That’s it “From the Swamp”