Senior Night Sensations

Danville, Kentucky- Senior night. A time when the four-year men get buckets. A time when Kentucky Deluxe flows in celebration. A time to be alive.

Tonight, it was senior night in Waco, Texas as the Baylor Bears fought off Texas Tech. The Bears came out lacking energy. The stat nerds might have focused on Tech’s incredible luck of hitting 3s, or they might have added that Tech was lucky with the placement of rebounding numbers. But in reality I have no idea what these nerds would say because I don’t associate with nerds.

Instead, I know what I saw. Folks, what I saw was two seniors who refused to lose and a junior who said I’m previewing my senior night tonight. Royce O’Neale and Kenny Chery had huge moments. O’Neale hit two three-pointers in the last two minutes to give Baylor the lead, while Kenny Chery’s early heroics made the comeback possible. Taurean Prince chipped in a number of key buckets. I don’t know what his total number of points was because I don’t focus on counting lies. I count on seeing truths. And folks, the truth is this: Taurean Prince is one of the Big 12’s five best players, especially if you exclude Bill Self and Scott Drew from your definition of “players.”

Each night a man has choices. He can drink Kentucky Deluxe or see if the movie theater is serious about the “lifetime ban.” Or on some occasions, a man can watch a game bigger than himself. Tonight, I finished my last bottle of Kentucky Deluxe and witnessed two fine seniors play their last home game. At the game’s conclusion, I drove for another bottle. I saw the same faces— from my 1^st wife, who later became my 3^rd wife—to some young kids talking about calculus or hip-hop or damnit, I don’t care what.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t drive and pick up another home game for these two men. Instead, I grabbed another bottle of Kentucky Deluxe, cancelled my sons KenPom subscription, and thanked the Lord for blessing me with these men at this time.