Oopsie

 Look, maybe it's an Indiana thing. Good an explanation as any, I suppose.

I mean, here we are, living in our supposed Dark Age isolation in Flyover America, still a land of Native Americans living in tepees and coonskin-capped Dan'l Boones for all the rest of the nation knows. Has electricity made it out here yet? Do we have indoor plumbing? Are beef jerky and pemmican still staples of the Hoosier diet?

No one knows, out there in the wider world. To the rest of America, we're just the following refrain: "Hey, isn't there a state between Ohio and Illinois? And what's it called again? Oh, yeah, Indiana. You mean people actually LIVE there?"

Well ... yes. Yes, we do.

And we hoop, by God.

A hundred and a quarter years ago -- maybe more -- we discovered James Naismith's humble peach-basket recreation, and we made it our own. Naismith didn't invent it here, but we took it national. It's one of the rare things America knows us for, along with the Indianapolis 500, a president (William Henry Harrison) who died of pneumonia because he was too dumb to come in out of the rain, and various vice-presidents.

And yet ...

And yet, we still don't get any respect. Even as the cradle of buckets.

This brings us, in the Blob's usual meandering way, to what happened last night, when the Indiana Fever played the Minnesota Lynx in the championship game of the WNBA's in-season Commissioner's Cup tournament. The Lynx were were a league-best 14-2, playing at home and 10.5-point favorites. The Fever was 8-8 and playing yet another game without all-everything guard Caitlin Clark, the ATM of the WNBA.

So what happened?

Well, the Fever, led by Natasha Howard, Aliyah Boston and a backcourt-by-committee that combined for 46 points, smoked the Lynx 74-59. But not before getting dissed once again because, after all, they are the Indiana Fever.

As reported on the website Awful Announcing, ESPN, which broadcast the game, teased an upcoming video about the Commissioner's Cup Final on its YouTube page. The title of the video was "Full Reaction: Lynx Dominate Fever To Win Commissioner's Cup." Problem was, they teased it while the game was still being played. 

Oopsie.

Oopsie ... but, hey, par for the course, right? Wasn't it just a little over a week ago that the Indiana Pacers, the Fever's NBA brothers-in-arms, pushed the hugely favored Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games the NBA Finals? And might have raised the Big Trophy themselves had Tyrese Haliburton, who scored nine points in the first seven minutes, not gone down at that point with a shredded Achilles?

Why, sure. And wasn't it the rest of  Roundball America who gave the Pacers no chance, zero, nada, before the series began?  Who were predicting either a Thunder sweep or a five-game series at best?

Why, sure. Dissed again.

But, you know, that's OK. We're used to it. And at least last night we got to laugh at ESPN and, by proxy, the rest of Coastal America.

Some things just don't get out there right away, I guess. Poor Coastals.

Here. Have some jerky.