It’s March. For most of you, that means trips for spring break to somewhere warm and sandy. To me, it’s basketball.

So, as per tradition, the Klotsche Krazies that could make the trip to Indianapolis for the Horizon League Tournament drove down on Friday to see some good, quality basketball at Hinkle Fieldhouse. It was practically a trip just to get out of town.

As most college students go, there are no cars. We walk everywhere. In our group, there are two commuters, and we packed two cars for the trip down. The car I’m driving is owned by my parents. Because it’s an old car that breaks down frequently, I’m under strict orders to not take that car outside of Milwaukee.

So despite my best efforts to convince my parents to take their new minivan, which would be perfect for the trip, I was stuck. Either my car, shaky and unreliable, makes the trip, or Korry, Keerin and Danny are stuck in Milwaukee watching the game on the internet. A smart person makes the choice; too bad, maybe we can hitch a ride with someone if we win. I repeat, a smart person.

It’s afternoon, warmer than Milwaukee but still not warm enough to stand outside forever in a t-shirt. The bad part is, I have to stand outside. Someone has to flag down the tow truck. I’d be thanking my lucky stars for not breaking down in the middle of bumfuck Indiana, but I’ve got a pair of angry parents who are alternating phone calls on the hell that awaits me in Milwaukee. By the time the tow gets there, we’ve wasted an hour on the side of the road, 500 feet from our exit in Indy. It’s amazing how many people can see you when you’re 6′6” and as wide as a Smartcar. I pass the time fielding phone calls from other fans

The second car catches up to us and drives some of the guys to the arena. The tow takes my defeated vehicle to a Ford dealership at the next exit. I don’t even stick around to watch it go. I’m here for basketball, the last thing I need to worry about is how I’m going to get home.

We coast to the final three minutes against Cleveland State before sputtering to victory.

The worry is on every student’s mind as the game finishes: is this Rob Jeter’s last weekend as head coach? Rumors are that athletic director George Koonce is planning to fire Jeter after the season. Rumors are rumors, of course, but they’re hard to escape when everyone is talking about them.

George Koonce reassures me during the week in his office, “I am behind Rob Jeter and the basketball program 100%,” and rumors of his plans to fire coach Jeter are false. I want to believe the man sitting in the stands, pounding away on his Blackberry with potential donors as Anthony Hill pounds the CSU front line. Beating the Vikings runs our number in the W column to 20, the ninth time in the program’s 116-year history. Rob Jeter has two of them.

Word trickles in that the students passed a $25 fee to build an arena on campus for basketball. It’s the right move. The program can be so much more, and the “real” campus that students have always longed for at UWM begins with this arena. Koonce campaigned aggressively to get this fee passed. It is his biggest victory as director of Milwaukee Athletics.

So that’s what the students do in Indianapolis. They cheer for the Panthers, they cheer for Milwaukee, but right now their loyalty lies with Rob Jeter. It’s because Rob Jeter has supported them, has taken care of the program to the point where we’re in Hinkle Fieldhouse giving top ten Butler a run for their money. It’s for him that the student section has been rechristened by the students as “Jeter’s Jungle.”

By now, you know the result. Butler won a game that went down to the final minutes. The Panthers had too many ticky-tack foul calls, too many missed free throws to defeat the Bulldogs in front of a near-sellout crowd. It is tradition, started by Jeter, for the team to come thank the students personally for their support. The students thank James Eayrs, Burleigh Porte, Jason Averkamp and Ricky Franklin, who may have played their last game in the black and gold. Usually, Jeter joins the team in this tradition, but after this game he’s left for the locker room immediately.

The students direct on last “Rob-bie Jeter” chant at the coach as he leaves, hoping that it isn’t the last time they get to do it on the court. It was one last opportunity on the court this season for them to show their support for the man who has given so much of himself to build a winning program. And he has. Twenty-win seasons are hard to come by, and we went from nine to 14 to 17 to 20 under his watch. We still might play in either the CIT or CBI postseason tournaments.

It’s only going to get better. Jeter has the highest-ranked, on paper, recruiting class in the history of the program coming in. He has two players in Evan Richard and Kyle Kelm that are serious candidates for Mr. Basketball in Wisconsin. A third, Leek Leek, is very athletic, a defensive monster, and seemingly has no ceiling when it comes to his jumping or his potential. A transfer, Mitch Carter, dominates practice as he sits out this year waiting for his turn.

With one car for eight people, a grill, cooler, table, chairs, and several cases of Milwaukee’s finest products, the ride to the hotel was as crammed as Hinkle Fieldhouse was. More than once it was brought up that maybe we should open a window so someone’s legs could stretch out. The emotional drain of the weekend assured everyone of a long sleep.

For everyone else, it was a long ride home. For me, it’s the waiting game. Waiting to get my car so I can make the long trek back to Milwaukee, to class, and to normal.