I woke up in the middle of the night to ESPN like I usually do, and before I sleepily found the remote to shut it off, I caught some highlights that made me hold my eyes open long enough to get really confused.

The highlights were for a men’s basketball game between UMass and St. Bonaventure, both members of the Atlantic 10 conference. But instead of showing highlights of the game, ESPN showed old highlights between the two schools and posted the score as a 2-0 victory for UMass.

After realizing I didn’t just dream this, I came to learn that St. Bonaventure has decided to forfeit the rest of its season due to a rules violation that caused the team to be banned from the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament.

On Feb. 24, Atlantic 10 athletics directors discovered that junior forward Jamil Terrell was ineligible and never should have been playing for St. Bonaventure, according to ESPN.com.

As a result, the Bonnies, as they are so cleverly known, accepted a penalty from the university presidents in the Atlantic 10 and forfeited their six conference victories, but kept Terrell on the bench during last Saturday’s win over George Washington.

So the presidents went a step further and banned St. Bonaventure from this season’s conference tournament. The Bonnies fired back by bagging the rest of the season — Wednesday’s game against UMass and a game against Dayton on Saturday.

Apparently, some balling Bonnie underclassmen decided Tuesday that they didn’t want to finish the season and left for spring break, leaving some upperclassmen who did want to play without a team. At press time, none of the coaches have talked about the decision.

And what is the shot of j„germeister in this j„ger-bomb? A letter signed by the St. Bonaventure athletics directors, Gothard Lane and Derek Morel, that was addressed to the season ticket holders Wednesday.

Part of this showed up on ESPN.com, and reads like this:

“As an administration, we are committed to the reestablishment of the integrity and unparalleled pride that has characterized Bona basketball for many years. We assure you this period will pass, and success, dignity and Bona pride will soon prevail.”

Integrity? Unparalleled pride? And your team forfeited games yet to be played? What the hell are you toking on, my friends?

I understand why the players and team would be upset, because getting banned from your own conference tournament wouldn’t feel very good. But quitting just isn’t an option.

I’ve learned this in taking badminton this semester. Even though you are the worst in the class for some weird reason and you have nothing to play for, keep at it anyway for the sake of sport and competition.

There are a lot of teams facing adversity all the time and there are always teams that face situations where there isn’t much to play for, but who just picks up their ball and goes home?

The Michigan Wolverines men’s basketball program is under probation right now because of problems stemming back to the Fab Five from the early ’90s, and it is banned from postseason play.

But the Wolverines, who could have forfeited if they really wanted to, are tied for second in the Big Ten with a 10-5 conference record and have a chance to block an NCAA tournament bid from another Big Ten team because of their success.

The Minnesota Vikings had nothing to play for at the end of their season this winter, but went out and beat the New Orleans Saints and the Miami Dolphins — playing a major role in keeping both teams out of the playoffs.

Jake Sullivan summed it up Wednesday night, in the midst of mourning for Pete Taylor and after beating the Missouri Tigers, when he said there are more important things than basketball.

This is a true statement.

But after losing a close member of the Cyclone family and having assistant coach Randy Brown resign and get charged with possession of child pornography in the same week, the adversity didn’t stop a determined basketball team from pounding a very good Big 12 team.

There are many more examples of teams facing adversity or not having a strong reason to continue a season, but never will you hear about a team quitting — until now.

At its conference meetings in April, the Atlantic 10 is going to discuss the possibility of dropping St. Bonaventure from the conference for embarrassing the league. This most likely won’t happen given the Bonnies’ 20-plus years in the conference.

But not only do I think they should be dropped from the conference, I say the Bonnies should be dropped from basketball in general. It’s one thing to get up and turn off the PlayStation 2 when you are losing badly to your stupid roommate in John Madden football, but to literally pick up your ball and go home in organized sports is the lowest form of poor sportsmanship one can display.

To the underclassmen that ditched their team: I hope you are having fun on spring break because the rest of the sports world is laughing at you.

Kyle Moss is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale. He is the sports editor of the Daily.