Who knew Shakespeare was such a huge - or should that be Yuge! - University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball fan?
What possible reason other than that would he have had to pen the phrase "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown?"
Because could anything better sum up the hot mess that has overtaken the defending Southern Conference champs than those pithy, prophetic words?
Especially when second-year coach Matt McCall noted this past weekend - in the wake of a 10-point home loss to Mercer, the Mocs' third straight defeat and fourth in six games - "There's just a certain standard here. You don't meet the standard, there's consequences to be paid."
In fairness, McCall probably was speaking more of his standard of behavior for his players than the program's standard of excellence in the eyes of Mocs Nation, a standard that began in the 1970s, when the Mocs were on their way to an NCAA Division II national title before moving on up to Division I as a member of the proud Southern Conference.
That standard for the program led to multiple NCAA tournament berths in the 1980s, 1990s - including the 1997 Sweet 16 run - and the 2000s. Then McCall delivered the program a fourth straight decade of March Madness when the Mocs won last year's Southern Conference tournament after a six-year drought.
Given that the SoCon has for so long been a one-bid league, such somewhat steady success over a span of nearly 40 years indeed breeds expectations to live up to those standards of success. Especially when this team welcomed back a starting lineup's worth of seniors to heighten expectations for back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances for the first time since the early 1990s.
Instead, the champs have become chumps, and not only because their losing streak has now reached a foul four in a row following Monday's meltdown at The Citadel, which entered that game with three total SoCon wins in 17 games, as well as eight straight losses to the Mocs.
No, what makes this a bunch of chumps at the moment is its behavior Saturday inside the Roundhouse against Mercer, which is decidedly against McCall's standards for his players.
Though various sources have somewhat different details as to exactly what went down both inside and outside the UTC locker room regarding seniors Tre McLean, Johnathan Burroughs-Cook and Greg Pryor, no one disputes that there was a fairly public disagreement between McLean and Burroughs-Cook and that Pryor injured his hand punching something - a locker, a door, something, but not someone - at some point after the loss.
Defenders of Pryor could at least argue that his heart was in the right place, even if his head and hand clearly weren't.
McLean and Burroughs-Cook are another matter, if only for something UTC athletic director David Blackburn noted Monday.
"It's OK to disagree," he said. "It's not OK to be disrespectful and disparaging. And certainly not in public."
To McCall's credit, McLean was suspended for The Citadel game. If Pryor's hand is broken, so might be the Mocs' dreams of rebounding well enough from this awful skid to repeat as SoCon tourney champs. Given all the turmoil of the few weeks, one and done might almost be a blessing.
Especially if McCall's assessment of his team after the Mercer loss, that "we were a connected team last year but we're not connected right now," is irreversible.
So what went wrong? To borrow a line from Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises": When Bill asks Mike, "How did you go bankrupt?" Mike replies, "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."
However good the Mocs looked in the spectacular win at Tennessee to open the season, the loss of Chuck Ester before the season robbed McCall of one of his most versatile and low maintenance athletes. His absence might not have been felt immediately, but as the season went on, as Xavier transfer Makinde London's development lagged behind, this team's lack of a reliable 3-point shooter and the pressure to duplicate or improve on last year's magical 29-win season began to do the Mocs in, eventually leading to what appears to be a colossal collapse down the stretch.
Gradually, then suddenly, indeed.
This is not to say that Blackburn believes McCall hasn't handled a tough situation well.
"Matt's smart enough to recognize some things he's addressing," he said. "I don't get into a coach's business unless he can't handle it, and Matt's handling it just fine. This is an opportunity for him to learn from."
Yet something else Blackburn said Monday many of us parents, teachers, coaches and business leaders could learn from.
"As parents, we don't let young people fail enough," he said. "It's important to fail now and then. You need to learn how to handle failure and learn from failure."
With these 2016-17 Mocs, however, it's tough to figure out which they've handled worse - failure or success. But a failure by McCall, his staff and next year's returning players to find that answer could have a huge impact on how quickly this program can reclaim its SoCon crown moving forward.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.