With the end of my college career drawing closer each day, I have grown increasingly reflective, finding myself asking some of life’s great questions. Who am I? What does love got to do with it?  Did I make the right choice in coming to Marquette? And what would life be like had I gone to another school?

Perhaps these last two questions were what compelled me to travel to Notre Dame with a caravan of friends to see the Marquette men’s basketball team play last weekend. In hindsight, the trip could only have been made by a group of people with little to no genuine self-preservation at heart.

“What would happen,” we asked ourselves, “if we infiltrated enemy territory, infuriated our opponent’s supporters and risked banishment before exploring our rival’s hometown and eventually escaping to living quarters that probably carried several diseases?”

South Bend, Ind., home of the Fighting Irish, provided the answer.

The game itself was a disappointing example of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, but that was not our only concern.

Yes, there was a good chance we would lose, but if we were going to go down, at least we would go down swinging. My friends and I employed every battle cry we could think of, from common Marquette cheers to comparisons between Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey’s unimpressive wardrobe and Buzz Williams’ stunning garb.

Per a request from Notre Dame’s fans, an usher asked that we tone it down. Per a request from the press corps, my roommate Jeff and my friend Thomas returned to their seats after entering the press box to contribute their own play-by-play analysis.

After the game, we decided to find out what Notre Dame students do for fun by spending some time at a local bar called The Linebacker. With a stringent hats-forward dress code, a DJ that only plays CDs and three angry, bald bouncers, The Linebacker is the kind of establishment I agreed to enter solely on the grounds that I would never be asked to enter it again.

Apparently, Notre Dame students decided to be Notre Lame and stay home that night. We unexpectedly found ourselves with some degree of command over The Linebacker’s dance floor, music requests and, at one point, the DJ’s microphone, which my roommate Matt used to express his somewhat unflattering feelings about Notre Dame.

This was fine for us, but for some reason, the bouncers did not seem thrilled by our presence. One refused to let my roommate Ryan’s girlfriend re-enter the bar to find her coat, and after Ryan swore at the bouncer and told him he didn’t know anything about South Bend, we decided it was time to move on.

We soon found ourselves at a bar called Cheers where, despite the television show’s misleading theme song, nobody knew our names. After mixing with the locals and listening to a two-man band cover Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars, we retired to the Knight’s Inn, the haggard motel we each paid about $12 to sleep in.

While my roommate Bobby’s girlfriend bravely ignored what appeared to be a bloodstain under her pillow, Matt and his girlfriend opted to sleep in one of the cars.

All of this gave me a lot to think about as we drove back to Milwaukee the following morning. Though our team lost a hard-fought battle, we could take comfort in knowing we had probably made the absolute most of South Bend and exhausted the city in just one night.

As I thought about it more, I realized that while Marquette may lack some of Notre Dame’s luster, from prominent national name recognition to Rudy Ruettiger, the friends with which I explored South Bend justified my decision to go to Marquette countless times over.

And if nothing else, going to Marquette means I don’t have to spend my Saturday nights at The Linebacker.