Bruiser Flint is no longer the head coach of the Massachusetts men’s basketball team. This resignation ends months of speculation, media attention, and fan ire. The team can now get a fresh start.

So what?

The fact that the hoops team garnered so much attention because it was so bad is an insult to the rest of the sports teams on this campus who do so very well, yet receive little or no support or attention from the student body.

Bruiser Flint is gone because his team was terrible. The fact that the student body cares more about basketball when it is bad than it does about lacrosse when it’s ranked No. 9 (which, by the way, it is) does not speak well to our school spirit or athletic appreciation.

Our field hockey team this past season was phenomenal. It not only made it to the Final 8, but it hosted, here on this campus, the Atlantic-10 Tournament. Where were you?

The attendance at the tournament was pathetic. A nationally attended event with the best teams in the conference and a UMass team that was doing well on campus was virtually ignored. And yet the basketball team losing is big news.

The UMass softball team regularly flirts with, enters and exits, the top 25. But Bruiser Flint quit – and that’s big news.

Minuteman lacrosse is ranked No. 9. Of all the schools in the United States of America, we have the one which is better than all but eight of the teams in existence, and has the potential to climb even higher. Garber Field, on its best day, cannot even hold the crowd which saw the hoops team get squashed by Temple at the Mullins Center.

Women’s water polo is, in the words of one fan consulted for this editorial, ‘absolutely nasty.’ Can you name a position played in this sport?

Women’s crew. Men and women’s gym. Track. Tennis. Skiing. Can you name the same amount of players on these teams that you can on the basketball team that consistently fails to make the postseason?

The time has come for the students of this campus to reevaluate their priorities and broaden their horizons. UMass was made famous athletically by the basketball and, recently, the football programs, but they are not the be all and end all of University athletics.

In crying or rejoicing in Bruiser’s demise, perhaps you should realize that there are other sporting options right here at home. Go to Garber and watch lacrosse, head to the Boyden for water polo and make a mental note to check out field hockey next season.

It’s time for us all to wise up to the athletic superiority all around us, and stop paying so much attention to a mediocre basketball team.

Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Collegian editorial board.