xii · basketball
Indictment of the Unused Holster: Reckoning With the Quiet October Prairie at Gallagher-Iba Arena
A solemn look at a quiet campus corridor where no six-shooters are currently clearing leather.
There is a distinct, heavy kind of silence that settles over the wooden floorboards of Gallagher-Iba Arena when the tumbleweeds finally win the territory dispute. October has arrived with its usual crisp bite, bringing with it an eerie, unsettling emptiness across the Oklahoma State Cowboys practice facility. The racks of basketballs sit undisturbed in the corner like unspent cartridges in a rusted ammunition crate, waiting for a hand fast enough to fan the hammer. For the dedicated followers of this program, this stretch of the calendar represents a peculiar brand of purgatory—a mid-October bye week where the only thing drawing fire is the arena’s ancient central heating unit.
We sit in the press box, staring out over a pristine, vacant hardwood expanse that currently registers a zero percent saloon-clearance dominance rating. Without a live opponent to rustle from the corral or a high-speed transition shootout to measure on our quick-draw velocity indices, the mind wanders to the philosophical weight of the idle trigger finger. Basketball, at its core, is a frontier shootout condensed into forty minutes of frantic possession-hunting. Every pull-up jumper off the screen is an act of calculated aggression, a swift clearing of leather before the defense can cock a hammer. To spend these sunlit autumn afternoons without a single fast-break stagecoach robbery on the docket feels almost unnatural, like an empty holster mocking a weary lawman.
Yet, there is a quiet dignity to this seasonal lull. It is a time for maintenance, for oiling the mechanisms of the offense and ensuring that every perimeter sharpshooter has their sights properly aligned before the conference stagecoaches start rolling through hostile territory. The coaching staff moves through the shadows of the empty arena with the measured tread of experienced bounty hunters studying a cold trail. They are reviewing old tape, measuring the dust-cloud density indices of last season’s most reckless perimeter gunfights, looking for any sign of hesitation that might cost us a shootout down the line. In the quiet hours of a Thursday afternoon, you can almost hear the phantom echo of squeaking leather and bouncing leather alike, a reminder of the violent, beautiful tempo that awaits us once the officials finally toss the opening ball into the high-noon glare.
Until that day arrives, we must content ourselves with the slow burn of anticipation. The cowboys are resting, the six-shooters are cooling in their velvet-lined cases, and the prairie wind hums a lonely tune against the brick facade of the coliseum. It is a heartfelt tribute to the art of the draw, practiced in reverse—the art of waiting patiently while the barrels are cold, knowing full well that when November breaks, the smoke will fill the rafters once more.