And he is scared to death of it. While I can not explain it, I still believe that Karma exists. We all have sat there and watched a game where a referee calls a foul that looks like a bad call, and then the 90% free-throw shooter goes to the line and misses the free throw. The ball doesn’t lie – it knows!

Blogging things makes me scared that one comment that goes too far could impact my favorite team. But the last few weeks, I have been thinking about things that I can’t keep avoiding the topic.

I will take my Boilers for example. At the end of the Northwestern game, once the game was clearly out of reach in the final minute, the coach subbed out senior star Nick Martinelli (who had fought so hard all year including that night where he scored 25 points on 10-16 from the field) so the Northwestern fans could cheer for him one last time in Chicago. And as the Northwestern fans stood to cheer for him, many of the Purdue fans at the United Center stood as well so the entire arena was giving him a standing ovation for all he has meant for Northwestern basketball. It wasn’t the type of trash talking you usually see from fans – it was everyone standing in respect for a senior who had played his heart out.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been to enough Indiana games to see things that I was not proud to see the fans do. But for this night, I was proud to be a Purdue fan. Because sportsmanship matters and videos of the game surfaced afterwards of this nice moment. I thought to myself about writing about it – but I was too afraid it might jinx my Boilers.

So of course, I made sure I wore the same Purdue shirt that I wore and the same black socks in case they were lucky the next day, and the Boilers won again against Nebraska. And then I washed those lucky clothes because maybe Karma really liked it when I wore those clothes – and they held on to beat UCLA. And so for the fourth day in a row, I wore my Purdue shirt, and somehow they won the Big 10 championship. That shirt and those socks will certainly be worn on Friday as we play Queens.

I totally understand that it is more likely that the players simply did well. Oscar Cluff played inspired basketball for 4 days. Braden Smith broke the Big 10 tournament record for assists. Trey Kaufman-Renn scored 20 points against Michigan. Everything clicked. But it is nice to think that because the fans did something nice that Karma looked favorably on the Boilers. It is nice to think that by simply wearing an old black Purdue T-shirt and black socks that I can send some luck my Boilers way. And so I get nervous about writing about Karma.

But things keep coming up that make me see the coincidences work in the opposite direction as well. Lets take a couple of Hall-of-Fame (or at least future HOF) coaches. First, lets look at Dan Hurley from UConn. The Huskies needed a win in the last regular season game to claim a share of the Big East title. And so of course, Hurley was upset when they needed a basket in the last drive, there was certainly contact, but no foul was called leading to Marquette winning the game. And so he goes on one of his tirades, bumping into the referee as he screamed at him. So, he gets tossed from the game. It didn’t impact the final score – there wasn’t enough time once the foul wasn’t called for the Huskies to win. But his press conference afterwards was awful.

“I don’t think I bumped the ref,” Hurley said. “ I thought I got close to yelling at John. If John thinks I bumped him, he’ll say I bumped him. I think I yelled into the back of his head, ‘Foul! Foul! You could screenshot whatever you want to screenshot. I don’t feel like I made any contact with John. I don’t believe I did.”

It is laughable to think that all he said was Foul. And to say you can screenshot it doesn’t make it true is ridiculous. The game is nationally televised and everyone saw Hurley come onto the court like a maniac and bump into the referee. No one would have thought any less of him if he simply said, I was so upset – that drive was so important to our season and I felt there was a foul and I lost my composure. I should have never physically touched the ref. But Hurley simply denied what everyone in the world saw.

That leads us to Saturday night at Madison Square Garden where the Huskies could get some redemption and take the conference tournament title. And St. John’s runs them out of the gym (and Hurley got another technical foul for complaining with the referees). You could say it is coincidence and St. John’s just played an inspired game. But the Lunatic is scared of Karma and if it played a role.

Lets talk about the Michigan State Spartans and Jeremy Fears Jr. First of all and above anything else – Fears is an incredible player who has the capability of leading the Spartans all the way to a National Championship. But he is a dirty player. The narrative started with their first game against Michigan, but it really got bad after he intentionally kicked a Minnesota player in the groin who had guarded him too close. He claims he slipped, but when a person slips, they don’t throw one of their legs backwards up to their waist while their other leg stays perfectly balanced and in place. Izzo said he would chew him out and deal with it that night.

So, sure enough in their finale against Michigan, the same type of play happened as he got fouled on the wing and suddenly kicked his leg up towards the Elliot Cadeau’s groin. It looked like he missed – but it also looked pretty clear what his intent was. Of course, he said he slipped again. At the press conference, Izzo said the following.

Izzo said he “did what I was gonna do, I chewed him out for it” before continuing to assail Michigan’s Dusty May’s public comments from the first game. “But I watched it on tape, and the guy’s pushing him in the back. And sometimes that happens. I’m sick of it being one-sided, though. That’s what upset me about the first time. So Fears will get his lunch from me. I wonder if some of their guys will get their lunch from what happened in the first game that didn’t get public. I don’t condone anything. I don’t think he tried to kick him on purpose.”

I have watched college basketball passionately for a long time. I remember playing in high school as a small 5’7″ kid with a much bigger player on my back. And never once did I get pushed in a way which would cause one of my legs to flail wildly straight into their groin. Somehow, this scenario happened twice to an All Big-10 player, and we are supposed to believe that he was falling and it wasn’t intentional. And it is complete garbage to say that Izzo chewed him out for it. If Izzo truly chewed him out for it, Fears never would have done it a second time. And even Izzo knows there is a difference between a player guarding physically and close, and a player kicking someone in the groin. The first is a basketball play – one that he coaches every single player who has worn a Spartans jersey to do. The second has nothing to do with basketball and has no place in the game.

So, that leads to Friday night as they play an undermanned UCLA team when Tyler Bilodeau, their leading scorer and rebounder, injures his knee late in the first half. And Donovan Dent goes off to score 23 points while Trent Perry adds 22 to lead the Bruins to a 4 point upset of the Spartans. And while I know it was just an inspired game by Dent and Perry, the Lunatic wonders if Karma had anything to do with it.

And yet, I was still afraid to write about it. The Lunatic wants Karma to be on his side. And then Monday’s news hits. So, lets go back to January, when the Alabama Crimson Tide invited Charles Bediako to challenge that he should still have 2 years of eligibility because the NCAA allowed other pros to play. Eventually the court sided with the NCAA, but Bediako got an injunction to get to play for a few games. Ironically, the Crimson Tide only went 3-2 in the 5 games that Bediako played, including a loss in his first game back at home against Tennessee. Once the court ruled against him, the Tide finished the season 7-2, with a win on the road against Tennessee. They actually might be a better team without Bediako – but they were willing to bend the rules to get whatever edge they could get.

I am sure that I will rant more about this – because player eligibility is a real issue that needs to be discussed by the Lunatic. But that is not what this rant is about. It is about the force that scares the Lunatic to death. And so when today’s news came, it forced the article to be written.

A few people have said that Alabama should have to forfeit the three games they won. Of course, that isn’t possible – it would break the court order. A few people have said that the Selection Committee should give them a bad seed to punish them – but that isn’t fair either. It might be a punishment to Alabama, but it also would punish some 8-11 seed by making them play against a true 4-5 seed instead of a 7-8 seed.

So, then the news comes out today. Second leading scorer Aden Holloway was arrested and charged with multiple felonies when the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force search a residence near Alabama’s campus and recovered more than a pound of marijuana, paraphernalia and cash.

It makes no sense to me why the second leading scorer of Alabama is involved with any of that. The kid is probably making a ridiculous amount of money through NIL programs as a star player for the Crimson Tide. But the school has announced that he has been removed from campus – so one has to assume that means he will not be playing in the NCAA Tournament.

Once again, I am sure the reality is this is just a young man who had too much money and decided that he wanted to get mixed up with drugs. But there is part of me that is scared that it was really Karma punishing the Tide because it knew no one else could. Lets be fair, it might even lead to the Tide getting better. Everyone was excited about getting Bediako back, and thought it was a big loss when he was ruled ineligible – and the Tide got better. Maybe Houston Mallette or Taylor Bol Bowen become the next man up, and they become one of the fairy tale stories of March as they lead Alabama to the Final Four.

Karma is all around us – so it is important to be a good sport and a good fan. Cheer for your team – absolutely. Don’t trash talk – it is not worth hurting someone’s feelings over a game. Don’t lie such as Hurley and Izzo did – Karma does not like it when people lie.

As for the Lunatic, I will be washing my black Purdue T-shirt that Karma has told me I need to wear. The Lunatic will do whatever Karma asks him to do.