Common wisdom in my family is that we're doomed to root for (at best) second place teams -- be it high school, college, or pro, our favorite will always finish just short of winning it all (or will flameout spectacularly just when things seem to be going well). I managed to shake this during the miracle that was OU's 2000-01 Football Season, but I was starting to think that maybe that was all I was going to get. After watching the best Cardinals team of my memory get swept by no less a cursed team as the Red Sox, can you really blame me?

But something weird has happened this sports year. (For all practical purposes, I consider the sports calendar year as starting with baseball season and concluding with the following spring's NCAA basketball tourneys. I don't care that much about the NBA or hockey so it works out.) Maybe the sheer improbability of the Cardinals winning the World Series after being lucky to survive the regular season somehow tilted the Universal Luck Determinator irrevocably to my side. How else do you explain the OU football team being handed the Big XII South by a suddenly struggling Texas and parlaying a season everyone was more than willing to write off into a BCS berth? How do you explain the New York Jets having a better record than the Giants? If the OU men's basketball team manages to get an NCAA tournament berth, something weird is going on here. (At this point, the OU women might be immune to fluctuations of the Universal Luck Determinator, given that they are actually really good, instead of against-all-odds good.

I'm not expecting any more championships this year (I don't want to get greedy). Just having three teams overachieve when failure was not just an option, but an expectation is more than any sports fan could ask for. But I'd just like to inform the Sports Gods that their beneficence has not gone unnoticed, and I am profoundly grateful. Just in case they're still making up their minds about college basketball season.