What if I told you that I owned anywhere from 18-21 pairs of the same brand of boxer shorts by Hanes? And let’s say the vast majority of them were either black or shades of gray, with three of them being this reddish/maroon color. Now, what if I told you that I have this pet theory where whenever I wear the reddish/maroon boxers, the sports team I like loses that day? You’d probably immediately start poking holes in my theory, like so many holes worn into these boxers I’ve had for years and years.

For starters, it’s not like the teams I root for are undefeated when I wear the boxers with shades of black or gray! And, I HAVE to believe there’s been a point where the red boxers have seen victory and I just don’t remember. But, I’ll tell you, lately I’m beginning to wonder. I’ve wondered so much that I’ve kept track throughout the Pac-12 conference season. Can you guess which two days I’ve worn the maroon boxers that coincides with a Husky gameday?

Look, it’s not my fault! If there was ever a day to disprove a theory, it was yesterday! The Cal Bears were 0-15 in conference play! They are the single worst Power 5 basketball team in the entire country! This was my chance to break the curse!

Instead, it appears I’ve only reinforced the bad mojo in these reddish boxers. I can’t bring them with me to Reno in three weeks; I just can’t!

Thankfully, I didn’t bother to stay up and watch. Because who needs that noise? On a night where David Crisp came up huge with 32 points, and a night where Jaylen Nowell did everything he could to pull us out of the fire (22 points, 8 boards, 5 assists), the defense was a God-damned trainwreck. Cal shot 55.6% from the floor and 53.3% from long range. From the sound of things, the Huskies were as lethargic as they’ve ever been, and if Crisp didn’t have the game of his life, this one would’ve been severely ugly.

So, I guess we can forget about 17-1 and running the table through the conference tourney. Not that we can’t achieve 16-2 and still run the table, but this loss is as bad as it gets. If there was ever a glimmer of a hope of landing on the 4-line in the NCAA Tournament, that’s over. I would argue that even the 5-line is off the table, which is probably for the best, because if there was ever a 12-seed to upset a 5-seed, it would be the team that got to face the Huskies. At this point, winning out MIGHT get us a 6-seed, but I won’t be holding my breath. This team still has another loss or two in it; the 8/9 game is on the horizon.

We all probably should’ve seen this coming, right? I mean, maybe not Cal, but also maybe Cal. This is the usual stupid type of game even the best teams in the conference lose from time to time. What’s surprising is that this hasn’t happened more often. The ASU game was a logical defeat on the road against a Tourney-ish team. To have only lost one bad game (so far) is still pretty remarkable.

But, let’s not make this a trend.