Sports: The Great and the Terrible

I got one sporting birthday gift for my birthday, and one sporting slap in the face:

1) Alex and Ian played together in a volleyball tournament yesterday and they did NOT get into any kind of altercation . . . unlike the last time they played some sports together . . . so this made me very happy, the fact that they played together on the same team, cooperated, and had a good time-- wonderful stuff;

2) then, once the boys got home, we sat down to eat chicken parm and watch Rutgers basketball close out the Minnesota game-- Rutgers had a comfortable lead the entire game, and we were all sitting there-- like old times-- so our dog Lola was incredibly happy and content to have her entire pack together at last-- and then Rutgers imploded and there was much yelling, even from my wife, and Lola got scared and Rutgers blew a ten point lead in the last minute-- I'm not sure why they didn't pressure the ball at the end of the game, or why they had guys in the paint when the only way they could lose was the three-pointer, but they figured out a way to squander that lead, it was like the fever dream of Reggie Miller when he scored 8 points in 8 seconds to beat the Knicks.