Because whining about it makes it all better.

I have a somewhat thoughtful post on Ted Haggard and meth-fueled trysts coming sometime soon, but before I write that, you'll have to excuse me, 'cause I've got some complaining to do.

The last five months have been some of the worst in recent Wisconsin sports history. It's one thing when your teams are just plain horrible, so you can quit caring about them. It's quite another when they tease you in every single game by losing at the last second. And I can't remember another year when that's happened to my teams as much as this one.

The Packers were the worst offenders, with an epically heartbreaking season. They had nine games that went down to the final two minutes or overtime, and they lost eight of them, including a streak of four straight games in which they blew a late fourth-quarter lead. They had an eight-game stretch this season in which they were outscored by just six points total, but somehow ended up with a record of 1-7. The NFL stat gurus Football Outsiders did an analysis just before the last week of the season showing that the Packers were the unluckiest NFL team in the last 27 years. I've never followed a season like that, where every time your team got a lead, you were so resigned to the fact that they'd eventually lose it--and they proved you right every single time. It's just not fun to have your pessimism backed up so consistently.

(Badger football, of course, was awful, too, though not quite in as gut-wrenching fashion as the Packers. They lost six times, with three of those losses coming on last-minute scores. But they also won three close ones, too. All in all, they weren't an unlucky team--just a horrible one.)

Then came winter, and with it, Badger basketball. This was supposed to be a down year for the Badgers, but nowhere near this painful. Back while football season was going on and no one was paying attention, they split a couple of close games, winning by a basket against two teams (Iona and Idaho State) that shouldn't have been able to hang with them and losing two tight ones against top teams (Marquette and Texas). Then came the conference season, and specifically the last four games. The Badgers lost two straight in overtime, then two more in the last minute to bring their losing streak to five, their longest in more than a decade. This quite thoughtful Badger fan's response after the most recent of those losses sums up my thoughts on Tuesday perfectly.

Oh, and Nebraska basketball? They've led big-time programs throughout most of their last three games, only to fall short in the final two minutes. Tom Osborne had to give them a pep talk this week to tell them, basically, that things can't possibly get any worse.

But enough of my whining. At least we still have Husker football, right? Those lucky dogs.