I'm not saying I agree with it, but sometimes I get why nihilism is so appealing...

I can't believe I'm actually typing this.

Patrick Patterson is done for the season. It's 3:51 PM on Friday and there are people still blissfully going about their days who have no clue that Kentucky's best player and only hope for some sort of post-season run is limping around the Wildcat lodge with a cast over his leg. I can only imagined the joy felt by Bruce Pearl and Billy Donovan when they heard the news, as they no doubt have by now. I am Ill.

There I was, minding my own business, substitute teaching my little heart out when I felt an unsteady vibration on the right side of my stomach. No, it wasn't my bowels trembling with that devastating feeling you get when you look for something valuable and it's isn't there, only to remember you've put it somewhere else. That was still a few seconds away. It was my cell phone. Normally, I don't check messages until the very end of the day. It's rare, however, that Bubba calls me during the day, so I checked. Of course, I wish I never had. I triple-checked the story and it was as true as the day is long.

The last time I wrote something about UK this tinged with sadness was after our 2005 double OT loss to Michigan State, the infamous Patrick Sparks miracle shot game. It was raining and miserable outside then, just as it is right now. Our season is over. Our season is over. Our season is over. I have to keep saying it just to make sure I don't start to rationalize, as I'm prone to doing. If I didn't beat the truth into my head so fervently, I may start saying things like, "Maybe we can still get Meeks back into a consistent role," or, "The Coury/Carter Combo could make up 17 points and 8 rebounds a game, right?" God Help Me. Our season is over. Never mind the Tennessee game. How about South Carolina and Florida and the one SEC tournament game we'll get to play. I was pumped to go to Atlanta and cheer for these cardiac-close call-bend but don't break-10-3 in conference 'Cats. No longer. Perry Stevenson has improved, you might say. Patrick Patterson is Stevenson's improvement personified. Without Patterson sucking defenders to the low block like a black hole, Stevenson is still just the team stick figure. And the tournament selection committee. Oh Lord. Even if we manage to Houdini our way out of this death trap and put ourselves in a close call bubble situation, what sane person looks at this team minus Patterson and thinks, yeah, they've got a real shot to do some damage.

Perhaps you say I'm being pessimistic. Perhaps you think I'm underestimating the will of this coach or these seniors. Perhaps it's a little early in the day for you to be drinking. I am a noted optimist. I swear to you that before every game for the last three years, I have fully expected to see my previously unthinkably bad Wildcats come out, put it all together and in one broad stroke, right the ship, undoing all of the crappy underachieving they had seemed to revel in. I had real hope for this team. Not SEC tournament hope or Maybe we'll get a bid hope. REAL, honest to goodness feelings of excitement for what this team could do given a lucky matchup or two in the NCAAs. Obviously, I was a fool to think that luck would ever smile kindly upon this particular group of injury plagued whipping boys. I was four when probation happened at the University of Kentucky. I do not cope well with this sort of abject despair.

So, here I am + a few hours from PPID (Patrick Patterson Injury Day). I am miserable. I am miserable. I am miserable. Though Jonny made a point (I haven't decided if this is comforting in the least, although my inclination is that it is not only not comforting, it actually somehow adds to the pain) by saying that this could be worse. We could be 25-1 right now and this loss could signify the end of Championship hopes as opposed to the end of maybe-we're-in-the-tournament hopes. This is bad.

The team will, of course, try picking up the pieces and shocking themselves out of the stupor this has surely induced. And although it seems foolish to think that in the wake of events at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois in the last year that something as trivial as the broken ankle of a nineteen year old kid could make me feel so hopeless when those events certainly didn't affect me this much, this team is a big part of my life, for better or worse, whatever that says about me or the millions like me who give of themselves to invest in sports.

It just dawned on me that one of those blissful masses mentioned above may well be my beautiful wife. Sweet, innocent Sara, unblemished by doom and despair. The thought of breaking the news to her makes me feel worse, if that's possible. So why then do I know I'm going to pick up the phone and call her as soon as I'm done typing?

They say you always hurt the one you love. They forget to include that this happens most when you don't even recognize the faces of the ones who love you. Yes, Patrick, I'm talking about you.