As I tried to bolt from the Kemper Arena on Friday night, I noticed five 40-something men, all trying to look busy. They're the handlers of the Xavier University basketball team, and they were completely somber. They checked their cell phones, gazed at stat sheets or counted cracks on the floor. Anything to try and seem inconspicuous.

Ten feet away, standing with his hands firmly placed against the wall and with his head bowed, Xavier coach Skip Prosser was acting as if someone had just died. He stood there, frozen in that pose, in a complete state of mourning for 10 minutes.

Last year, one of my co-workers, a not-always-so-easy-to-get-along-with writer named John Gustafson, spent a week inside the Muskies program and told me what a decent man Prosser is. I couldn't help but think about that image of Prosser and the one before me. It's amazing how a basketball game can turn a 50-year-old man inside-out.