I didn't follow the Ramblers men's basketball team very much last year after the home loss to Youngstown State in the second conference game, when the Ramblers blew a 14-point lead with less than 14 minutes left. I checked in a few times here and there, and maybe watched one full game the rest of the year.

But in researching what happened last year, including in that game that disgusted me so much, I kept coming across a word that really bothered me in the post-game stories: "Heartbreaking/Heartbreaker." The story on loyolaramblers.com about that inexcusable loss to Youngstown State had the headline "Loyola Drops Heartbreaker To Youngstown State, 68-66." The story about the final game of the year was "Loyola's Season Ends in Heartbreaking Fashion At Youngstown State, 62-60." Also last year was "Short-Handed Loyola Drops Heartbreaker, 60-59 At Youngstown State" and "Loyola Drops 61-59 Heartbreaker At UIC." "The previous year featured "Ramblers Drop Second Straight Overtime Heartbreaker, Fall To Green Bay, 73-70" and "Loyola Drops Heartbreaker In Overtime, 68-64, At Youngstown State." The postgame story after the second game at the Portland MTE earlier this year had the headline: "Ramblers Drop Heartbreaker To UC Davis In Overtime, 64-61."

And those are just the headlines, only in men's basketball. The word is repeated more often in the story text, and sometimes used for losses in other sports. It was used in the first sentence of the game notes for yesterday's Bradley game to describe the loss at SIU. A Google search for "loyolaramblers.com"+"heartbreaking" reveals "About 529 results," and "loyolaramblers.com"+"heartbreaker" yields "About 484 results." Just to make sure I'm not being overly sensitive or bizarrely fixated on this, I did a search on the Bradley athletic site, and the word or its derivations have been used only eight times in the past 10 years, and only once since 2008.

Here's my proposal: Stop it already. The word makes it sound like we don't have any control over the proceedings in these contests, as if it was something done to us rather than falling short in a hard-fought competition. Using that word helps deflect responsibility and ownership of the results. It helps defer confronting the shortcomings and/or absolve the inactions/miscalculations that led to its usage. And we've more than used up our lifetime quota for that damn word.

Also, it's not heartbreaking when it's a regular occurrence...

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Cigarboy sucks!

Agree. And if I may add... if you listen to Moser's pre- and post-game interviews on the "radio" you will hear the same first questions every time:

Pre-game: Coach, it was another heartbreaking loss last time out, but you must be proud of how your guys fought for 40 minutes.

Post-game: Coach, it was another heartbreaking loss tonight...

Please stop.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

63 ... couldn't agree more on the heart break crap!! Our biggest problem is turnovers. Last night i believe we had around 18. Lets just say you cut that in half and say that you convert on half of those possessions. My math gives me 9 - 10 additional points ... enough to make a difference in many of our games. We have to take care of the ball and that needs to start Sunday against ISU. Just a side note ... 63 I hope you don't check out this year ... I really enjoy all of your posts and you do a great job on the pregame summaries

Here is my modest proposal for stemming the overuse of the term "heartbreak" to describe Rambler losses.

Column A is a list of human organs. Column B is a list of synonyms for "Break". By combining a word from Column A with one from Column B, you have an almost inexhaustible supply of adjectives at your disposal whenever Loyola loses; almost enough to last through the end of Moser's tenure. Here are just a few alliterative examples: Bladder busting, pancreas pulverizing, spleen smashing and eye exploding. I also like Uterus popping.



Group A

Adrenal gland
Appendix
Bladder
Brain
Ear
Esophagus
Eye
Gall bladder
Heart
Kidney
Large intestine
Liver
Lung
Mouth
Muscle
Nose
Pancreas
Parathyroid gland
Pineal gland
Pituitary gland
Skin
Small intestine
Spleen
Stomach
Thymus
Thyroid gland
Trachea
Uterus
Vermiform appendix

Group B

bust
distintegrate
dismember
disrupt
fracture
fragment
rive
atomize
crush
grind
powder
pulverize
reduce
blast
blow up
burst
detonate
explode
crack
pop
shatter
shiver
smash
chip
sliver
splinter
split
implode
destroy
ruin
wreck

"Coach, it was another lung-splitting loss tonight, but you must walk away proud of the way your guys fought back time and time again."

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I'm thinking about going to the game on Sunday... i'm due to witness another "rectum buster".