Nah, nah, man. I’m cool. I’m good. I’m not mad. See? I’m telling you, I love Vasquez. Love him. That’s my man right there! I’m just like everybody else.

And that’s why I’m not mad that Maryland landed in Maui ranked #22 and will return stateside as, in all likelihod, a team also receiving votes.

The final score tonight against Wisconsin was 78-69. We let them have their way with us. We succumbed to their soul-crushing methodicalness. Who knew it was legal to literally remove the air from the ball during the course of play?

But let’s get back to Vasquez. He finished the game with 18 points. That’s respectable enough, until you remember that he scored 10 of those points with less than 4:30 left in the ball game — that is, once the outcome was no longer in doubt. That is, garbage time. Before that, he was 4-11 in shooting, 0-2 from three, and, most importantly, a big 0-0 from the line. Know why that is? Because Wisconsin saw his shitty Cincinnati game just like the rest of us, and before the game decided to just, like, not guard him. Seriously, the dude was open all game. He got the ball and it was like the Red Sea parting. The result? 4-11 and 0-2 from three.

Defense wasn’t the main problem, but their seal on the perimeter is leaky like a Tracy McGrady contract negotiation. It’s all playground style…once it’s clear someone is definitely going to shoot a three (ie, once it’s too late), someone runs out and throws up a hand. Sometimes I can almost hear them calling out “don’t miss!” as the ball goes up. Now that’s big time. If you don’t believe me, check the stats. Wisconsin hit 45 percent from three against the Terps. In their other two games in Maui, they shot 27 percent against Arizona and 21 percent against Gonzaga. Maryland held Cincinnati to 24 percent shooting from three. That’s great. But Vanderbilt held them to 20. Prairie View A&M, the university known for its prairie views, held them to 27.

But back to Vasquez. He’s the key to this team, man. I know that. And of course, that means he cannot be critcized for his slow start. See, here’s the plan: we watch them meekly give away a few more, including maybe one to, say, Winston-Salem State, then come into the ACC completely flat and blow games to Boston College and Miami. Then we all give up hope, thus making Maryland the underdogs. Then Vasquez can play without pressure and suddenly rediscover his game, at which point he keys a late run including Duke and UNC upsets that just barely gets them into the tournament, past a middlin first round and maybe a second round opponent, at which point we praise them as gutsy overacheivers. Vasquez realizes his dream of being drafted, and enjoys a nice career alleviating those cold winter benches for a warm-weather team that doesn’t travel well.

Doesn’t that all just sound so aweome?

And that’s why I’m not mad, dude! This is gonna be great. And you know what, this is all because Vasquez is too busy trying to create for his young teammates. He’s got bigger fish to fry than “scoring points” and whatever else the biased media heaps on him so unfairly. He’s trying to be a role model. Not in a basketball sense, mind you. In like a cool sense. He’s not playing well, but he’s cool with it. See how that works? He’s got, like, eleven extra gears we mortals don’t even understand. Once he turns it on dude it’s like a jet pack OMG and then you haters are gonna be sorry ROTFL.

Oh, will you be sorry.

And you know what? I’ll be there every step of the way. Mocking you.