Harvard's Jessica Knox discusses her love-hate relationships.

In honor of Valentine’s Day having passed just last week, I have elected to write this “blog-isode” about love-hate relationships. Some people, like me, love Valentine’s Day. I embrace every opportunity to show love and affection to those whom I love and…affect. Others, the cynical ones, hate Valentine’s Day, condemning it as the commercial creation of greedy candy and card corporations. But I would argue that though, yes, Valentine’s Day might be somewhat over-commercialized, it also still represents a concept that in its purest state is all sweetness and loveliness. But I digress.

Love-hate relationships. I love my birthday, and the fact that I am now the nice round age of 22—a symmetrical, visually appealing number—also the jersey number of my lovely teammate, Liz Altmaier. But I hate that with every passing year I feel more and more like my actual age multiplied by my own jersey number, 4—that would make me 88-years-old, physically speaking…the sore back, the tendonitis knees, the cracking hip, etc. (I’m exaggerating…no need to be concerned.)

And love-hate relationships are abundant in the sport of basketball. Love the game, hate the politics. Love to play, hate the preseason workouts. Love to play defense, (frequently) hate the refs. Love my teammates, hate the opponents. Love the home crowd, hate the fans on the road. You get the picture.

This past weekend’s road trip to Cornell and Columbia offered a perfect example of a love-hate relationship in a basketball context. Though in this case, it would be more appropriate to describe the relationship as hate-love. The New York road trip began with a six-hour drive to Cornell. Hate it. But we also watched some great movies on the drive. Love it.

There was nothing to love about our game against Cornell. We suffered our worst Ivy League defeat that I can remember. Hate, hate, HATE it! We could not have played worse. I hate the feeling of not playing well, the feeling of not clicking as a team, the self-satisfaction of sneering Cornell fans, the post-game talk after such a bad loss. I hate it all. And I hate having to drive throughout the night to arrive at our next location at 2 in the morning.

But I love the Ivy League because you wake up the next morning, ready to get back out on the floor, seeking reparations for the injury endured the night before (or if you won the night before, you get to continue the reign of terror).

I love the way my team came together after the stinging loss we suffered at Cornell. I love that we broke down Columbia’s door and shocked them into a state of panic. I love how we fought and scrapped, even when the game stopped going our way. I love that we were a team that Saturday night, just one night after we looked as though we’d never met each other. And most of all, I love that one or two losses does not mean the end of a dream.