Full disclosure: I’m a child of the Big Eight. That dates me, I know, a point the mirror mercilessly drives home every day.
See, once upon a time, kids, CU played basketball in this three-ring circus called the Big Eight Conference (Latin: ingens octo, or quod parum cesserit.) The Buffs were often lousy on the hardwood — CU’s average conference mark from 1981-90 was 3-11 — but it was a fun league where you knew the coaches by their first names: Johnny, Norm, Billy, Larry, Jack, Danny. Big Eight basketball afternoons were like sidling up to the bar at Cheers and plopping your back side right next to George Wendt.