Reality is slowly starting to sink in.

Once the NFL playoffs wrap up, students will start to fully appreciate the sports wasteland that DeKalb has become in the matter of a few weeks.

Last semester, the entire community banded together to support one of the best NIU football teams in the university’s history. It seemed every week the Huskies won another game, gained a few votes in the AP poll, and raised morale around campus a little more. When NIU finally cracked the AP Top 25, people could hardly contain their excitement for the team.

With the conclusion of that historic season, though, students on campus are left with a void that no sport currently in-season at NIU can replace. Some accept that fact, but that is the worst thing anyone can do. Sports and college go together like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly. There has to be at least one sport each semester the university can get behind.

What winter sport could possibly get an entire university excited? This might just be a shot in the dark, but maybe men’s basketball could do the trick.

So many Division-I schools are using this time to focus their attention squarely on the men’s basketball season. In another month, students will start gearing up for an expected spot in the NCAA tournament. For other schools just praying to get into the tournament, it’s even more fun. Students go to basketball games, knowing the game they attend could be the difference between a spot at the dance and a disappointing Selection Sunday.

At NIU, though, the only thing college basketball fans can do is twiddle their thumbs while awaiting the nightly college basketball games on ESPN. Watch as the sports network shines a camera on a student section bursting with the kind of enthusiasm NIU could only dream of.

The toughest part to swallow is that being competitive in men’s basketball has to be the most attainable out of any significant college sport. There are schools out there that are just as, if not more irrelevant than NIU that consistently field competitive teams. Down in Carbondale, Southern Illinois almost always puts out a team worth supporting.

The last time NIU earned a spot in the Big Dance, Bill Clinton was serving in office. And as much as people enjoy “Wild Bill,” his name should never be mentioned when discussing a school’s last achievement in men’s basketball.

It’s infuriating to think that NIU hasn’t even given itself a chance in the tournament in 15 years. Last year, Ohio went to the NCAA tournament representing the MAC and pulled off the win of a lifetime. The Bobcats took down Georgetown in the first round and proved it is not impossible for a MAC basketball team to make a difference.

Most NIU students could not even fathom going to the NCAA tournament and upsetting a perennial power, and that’s really sad. All Division-I schools should have at least a little hope each year.

It’s unfortunate that people are already looking ahead to spring football instead of looking forward to the MAC Tournament. But it isn’t the student’s fault they don’t even consider men’s basketball a sport at NIU. The onus falls on the university to put a team on the floor that can compete.

Students will continue to have nothing to cheer for in the winter if nothing is done about the men’s basketball team. Good or bad, it’s a fact.