Strake Jesuit College Preparatory is gangsta.

• 4:29 p.m. - 46-42 strake at end of 3. Frazier has 4 fouls (My dad is obsessed with Tim Frazier. Joey Brooks, the leading scorer, gets all the press, but The Bob loves Frazier's hops, and his athleticism.)
• 4:42 p.m. - All 3 stars have 3 fouls. Down by 1 with 1:34 left
• 4:43 p.m. - 2:24 left and down by 1 (not sure if there was a time machine involved in that sequence or not)
• 4:43 p.m. - The stars have 4 fouls
• 4:47 p.m. - Tied with 16 second left

This was the sequence of text messages The Bob was sending me last Saturday, during the Region III championship game between Strake Jesuit, my high school, and Chavez, the team that knocked them out in the 5A Texas basketball playoffs last year. I'd missed all 36 previous games the Strake team had played this season, all 36 of them victories. Ranked No. 1 in Texas, and No. 4 in all the U.S., this little Catholic school of just around 900 dudes -- no girls -- was 16 seconds away from making it to the Final Four of Texas high school basketball.

Watch the video, right now. This is the team that was tied with Chavez with 16 seconds to go. LUDAAAA!

(Oh, and for max effect, put it right at 1:40 and prepare to watch something you don't normally see in high school games.)

Sixteen seconds! Tied! And??????

All I could do was sit there in Jamison's passenger seat and wait. We were driving up to Wimberley to go camping, and I had to get out of the car to go unlock the gate. Come on, dad. Update. Update. Update!

I was literally nervous.

And then, after three minutes,

• 4:50 p.m. - Strake wins 59-58

BOOM!

My dad had that sound in his voice when he called me on his way out of the arena: the same way it sounded after the Chris Burke home run in the 18th inning in Game 4 against Atlanta in 2005, or after Vince Young's superhuman performance at the Rose Bowl against USC, or Adam Vinatieri's game-winner against the Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Whenever my dad goes to truly epic sporting events, he's got that sort of drunken with pleasure and exhaustion sound in his voice.

Garland, my little sister, is the captain of the Strake cheerleading team.

I went as her for Halloween this past year

She didn't have to call to convey how she felt about the outcome.

• 5:00 p.m. - Strake F***ing Jesuit

(Added stars mine. That's my girl.)

And I'll get to see how hard she cheers at the semis tomorrow. Actually I won't watch her at all. I don't give a crap about how she does tomorrow. I care about the game that is almost 12 hours from tip off as I type this. And after we beat De Soto, then comes Saturday: the winner of the San Antonio Wagner-Cedar Hill game. The Texas high school basketball 5A state championship game, held in the UT basketball arena. Strake Jesuit, my high school, is ranked No. 1 in the state, No. 4 in the nation, are 37-0 and heavily favored. I heard St. Thomas got, like, Craig Biggio to coach their baseball team. Cool. I got his autograph once. Nice guy. I'll take having a school that is badass and gangsta to one that is currently undergoing a similar demographic crisis -- shrinking population -- as the former Soviet Union any day, even if they do have a celebrity baseball coach.

The last time I saw Strake play was my senior year, in 2002. Back then, I was the ultimate Strake basketball fan. I grew up with Strake basketball. As a fifth grader, The Bob -- who also went to Strake, and whose brothers went to Strake -- used to take me to games to see those old legendary Jesuit teams of the mid-90's. They used to run shit. Jake Voskuhl (who later went on to become "the white center" on the '99 UConn title team, and then had a long, extremely marginal NBA career as a back up) played on those teams -- and he wasn't even the best player. Now Strake is not only back to the glory days, but they've surpassed those teams, who faced private school competition in private school leagues. The Strake of today is the same school, with a few more students, playing huge public schools who think they can ball with the College Prep, but actually can't.

Now that I'm thinking about other high schools besides Strake, I wonder if St. Johns has ever had a 5A state championship event televised live on Fox Sports Southwest -- crazy cool science experiments only tangientially related to sports don't count.

My high school is gangsta. Your high school is not. It's just the facts. I'm sorry. My co-workers say I'm "gay," and that I'm "living in the past." Also "loser," I've heard that one thrown around quite a bit in conjunction with the words "Bayless is a," or "you're a." I know that language; I've heard it many times. It's called the Hater dialect. It's what haters speak. A Tribe Called Quest has a response to hater talk: "'Blah blah blah,' that's what he said. And then I F***ED UP his head."

What he said. That's what my team will do to your team. Yeah.

How could we possibly not be bound for glory when we've got guys like Joey Brooks (6'5", headed to Notre Dame), Tim Frazier (6'2", headed to Penn State), Steven Rogers (5'10", headed to Rice), Wes Williams (6'4", playing football at Miami of Ohio), Eric Baars (6'6", playing football at Harvard) and Ryan Dunbar (6'3", who may try and walk on at Notre Dame)?

I've been talking about it constantly for the past two weeks, and it's finally here. I was scared to ask for time off Friday, because tipoff is at 3:30, and I get off at 6. I briefly considered having a relative die, then thought to myself, "What if that same relative really did die shortly thereafter?" Not something I want on my conscience. So I came out with the truth: I need to be at this game. My sister is the captain of the cheerleading team; my dad is going to be there; my mom; my friends; Strake is gangsta; I need to be there.

And my boss, well, I think she knew it was either let me go or let me go, ya know? So she let me go. In a good way.

Tomorrow the question that has tormented man for the past 2,000 years will be answered: Does God love Strake Jesuit basketball more than other basketball teams? I would say yes, yes he does. Because they are gangta. Even the cheerleaders call them Strake F***ing Jesuit.