Texas Longhorns vs. Incarnate Word Game Thread

The college basketball season does not start with a bang. For most teams it starts quietly, on a Friday night in a half-empty arena, while most of the rest of the world is focused on football or dinner out with a spouse or perhaps a few drinks. It starts not with a dramatic match-up against a top-ranked opponent, but with a contest against a team with hopes that are rather different for the season. It starts in a half-empty arena with the sound of squeaking shoes.

This is fine with me, appropriate even, because it is the sound of shoes squeaking on a wooden floor paired with the bounce of the ball that is the actual sound of this game. In loud arenas, the way that many spectators experience the sport, you cannot hear this. But this is the fundament sound that players experience for most of the many hours that they spend in what is largely a quiet pursuit.

Over the course of the season, we lose the quiet. The game gets louder as the football season fades away. Conference play starts in January and teams like Kansas and Oklahoma come to town. There will be plenty of time for that in a few months; plenty of time for that noise. But for now we have a quiet game and time to contemplate what will be.

Join us in quiet contemplation. This is your game thread.