Another basketball loss is the least of Chicago State’s worries

At the intersection of 95th Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue on Chicago’s gritty South Side sits a small college campus among leafy trees and grassy lawns, at least after the snow melts.

This is Chicago State. Student enrollment: 4,367. For now anyway.

Proceed east from Chicago State on 95th toward the Indiana state line and you will come upon the East 95th Street Bridge that spans the murky Calumet River. This is the bridge that “Joliet” Jake and Elwood Blues jumped in the original “Blues Brothers” movie while it still was in the raised position.

Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration don’t fail me now.

Chicago State needs some blessed acceleration, in the worst way. Chicago State also needs a briefcase full of cash — way bigger than the one Elwood handcuffed to his wrist in the movies with The Penguin’s orphanage money inside.

Chicago State has a basketball team that, for some reason, plays in the Western Athletic Conference. The Cougars lost to Cal State Bakersfield 79-57 in the quarterfinals of the WAC tournament Thursday afternoon at Orleans Arena.

Chicago State’s record fell to 4 wins, 28 losses, which sounds dire, until you learn Chicago State has declared “a university-wide state of financial exigency.”

What this essentially means: Chicago State is broke.

If the Republican governor and the Democratic legislature down in Springfield, Illinois, can’t agree on a state budget soon, there’s a good chance Chicago State may not make it over the drawbridge.

Thirty percent of the school’s operating budget comes from the state. Without the stipend, the future of the small college on 95th Street is more murky than the waters of the Calumet River.

On Feb. 26, all 900 Chicago State employees received notices that layoffs are forthcoming. So in the grand scheme of things, a 22-point loss to Cal State Bakersfield on a slab of a hardwood in the Las Vegas desert probably wasn’t the end of the world.

Only a few hundred spectators and a couple of pep band trombone players were on hand, which shows how far the WAC has fallen, too. It wasn’t like this in the old WAC, when Keith Van Horn and Andre Miller were playing for Utah and the WAC wasn’t so desperate for membership.

Over at the Pac-12 tournament at the MGM Grand Garden, where the well-heeled are hooping it up, players are wearing complimentary T-shirts with the Nike logo on front that say “BRING YOUR GAME.”

Before the game against Bakersfield at The Orleans, the Chicago State players wore green T-shirts that said #SAVE ILLINOIS EDUCATION.

Nike didn’t pay for Chicago State’s warmup shirts. Neither did the politicians down in Springfield.

“It’s not just Chicago State,” the school’s athletic director, Dr. Denisha Hendricks, said at halftime. “All state institutions are being affected, as well as social services, Head Start, state museums … just because the people we voted for — the people we trusted — have not been able to come to some resolution.”

(Before the game, Hendricks accepted a small prize at halfcourt for Chicago State having raised the most money among WAC teams during a Christmas toy drive. Small budget. Giant hearts.)

If you want to know how “financial exigency” impacts the Chicago State basketball team, it means scheduling way outside of its league in return for a paycheck. Illinois, DePaul, Northwestern, Minnesota, Marquette … not a lot of directions and ampersands among that bunch.

It also means clipping coupons out of newspapers to save on meals, and flying on airlines that don’t charge extra to check bags, and limiting recruiting trips to places one can drive to without staying overnight. Such as Milwaukee.

Sometimes the Chicago State coaches just use Skype. Rest assured that Mike Krzyzewski did not use Skype in recruiting Grayson Allen to Duke, regardless of what that ESPN commercial might imply.

When the state politicians aren’t bickering, Chicago State’s normal operating budget is $6.2 million. UNLV’s, by comparison, is around $35 million. Michigan’s is around $145 million. If it’s any consolation, the Wolverines may not make it to the Big Dance, either.

Chicago State has trimmed its athletic budget to around $2.8 million. Michigan has that much in the sofa cushions in the coaches’ lounge.

It’s a sad story made even sadder when one considers Chicago State is a last option for many of its players, even where there’s a little money in the bank.

One of the stories on the Internet references the grandmother of Cougars player Delundre Dixon waking up one morning to hear her Delundre accepting a scholarship offer to Chicago State. Screaming and rejoicing and repeated thanking of God ensued.

“I was so excited. I was so proud,” Sandra Green told Vice Sports. “I can’t tell you how proud I was that my grandson was going to college.”

Alas, the story included a more current quote from Delundre Dixon, who grew up in Rockford, Illinois, where black kids generally don’t go to college and struggle finding jobs: “If the school closes, where does that leave me? I’m trying to get my life started. What’s next? What now?”

At 6:55 p.m. Thursday, his season over, his future in doubt, Delundre Dixon and Chicago State walked off the court at Orleans Arena still wondering when the answers would come.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski