This is the thought process that has occurred in my head for the past eleven months I have been a Golden Eagle:

• May 2012: Well, the scholarship makes Marquette the best financial decision.

• June 2012: These flowers at Preview make the campus look gorgeous!

• August 2012: The food is awesome.

• September 2012: The food’s okay. But it’s the perfect distance from home.

• November 2012: I’m fortunate to be able to express my conservatism when most college campuses are quite liberal.

• January 2013: Why didn’t I consider California or Florida?

• February 2013: Even Missouri would be nice.

• March 2013: March Madness. This is why I came to Marquette.

Of course I came here for reasons besides the men’s basketball team.  But watching last Saturday night’s game, surrounded by my friends and the Marquette community, those reasons did not exist. We’re not the best basketball team in the nation. In both the Davidson and Butler game, we were losing. And yet we won. We persevered. We triumphed.

We.

We are Marquette.

I shouted those words at the first game against Colgate on November 8, over four months ago.

And I will shout them even louder this Thursday as we battle Miami.