Upstream, downstream . . . Minnesota 81/Rutgers 70

What a strange and perverse mental illness-- to look forward all day to a time when you will watch a remote event on television that will probably drive you to the brink of madness-- but believe that if you get emotionally involved enough, you will have some influence over the event-- and believe this enough so that you enjoy joyous high and suffer precipitous lows, project streams of profanity, enter existential futility, entertain possible resurrection, and finally go to bed, sweaty, frustrated, and fatigued, though you've only sat on your couch-- and you'll do it again Thursday night because the Rutgers men's basketball team is playing Purdue.