This is not the year. I’m okay with that.

Two years ago, my friends and I made the trek up to DC from Williamsburg with the full intention of watching one of the best William and Mary basketball teams of all time win a CAA championship and punch the school’s first ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Needless to say, it didn’t end up that way.

When Elon took out the Tribe in the quarterfinal, it was an anticlimactic, unsatisfying ending. Less than a week later, as the tournament was cancelled due to the novel coronavirus, I ended up unexpectedly thankful that W&M had lost. If *that* had been the year… it would have been cruel, cruel irony to cut down the nets but remain one of the Forgotten Four.

This season has been, in many ways, an inverse image of that 2020 team — this team is overwhelmingly young, starting two freshmen and two sophomores compared with the four seniors and one junior leading the way back then. In 2020, the Tribe finished second in the CAA; this year, second-to-last. Most importantly, that 2020 team had nearly everything go right. This season, nothing has gone right.

The beauty of mid-major college basketball is that it all goes out the window for one weekend in March. It’s probably not even worth mentioning the possibility of playing past Sunday, as the Tribe has looked overmatched much of the past month. But hey, it’s the CAA tournament — anything can happen, right?

Surprisingly, I find myself feeling similar to 2020. I wouldn’t want it to happen this way.

Any time I visualize W&M’s breakthrough to the NCAA Tournament, it’s a very specific mental picture, very similar to the 2014 or 2015 teams. The Tribe slowly builds, showing plenty of potential and gaining the attention of those in and around the CAA before, boom, you have one of the best seasons this school has ever had. Then you finish the deal, winning the conference tournament and it’s a cathartic experience.

I guess what I really want is the attention, the spotlight, for a community that I love. Maybe it’s naive and idealistic to want a tourney bid to happen a specific way and not just take it how it comes — it’s going to happen how it’s going to happen, if it ever does.

But for now, I’m okay to sit back with the expectation that this is not the year. And maybe, in a couple of seasons, all eyes will be on the Tribe as they head into a tournament they have a real chance of winning.