OK, so win No. 902 for University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball coach Jim Foster will have to wait a bit.
Thanks to a 32-10 run by East Tennessee State to close out Saturday's 61-55 loss to the Buccaneers, Foster won't be able to add to his Hall of Fame resume until at least Thursday's visit from Furman. And few coaches stew over losses more than Foster.
"They're all bad," he said late Saturday afternoon. "They all hurt."
But if this one may have hurt at least a wee bit less than the 342 losses that had come before it, it might be because of a win that Foster had nothing more to do with one week ago today other than being a lifelong fan. We're referring to last week's Super Bowl victory by the Philadelphia Eagles, for whom Foster has rooted since his childhood.
Asked to recall his first game watching his Eagles in person, he remembered a November Sunday in 1963, when his heroes were torched for 223 rushing yards by the great Jim Brown in a 23-17 Cleveland Browns win.
"I had the last seat in the stadium," Foster said.
But come last weekend, he watched the last thing most Eagles fans ever expected to see come true. He watched the Eagles earn their first Super Bowl win in come-from-behind fashion against the New England Patriots.
"If you're a lifelong fan," Foster said, "it can't be better than beating the best team ever in a game that they always make the big plays down the stretch, but this time you made the plays down the stretch."
His Mocs didn't make the big plays down the stretch against ETSU. No one but senior guard Keiana Gilbert was outstanding, and even Gilbert scored just two of her team-high 27 points in the final quarter. No teammate except Lakelyn Bouldin - who finished with 14 points, eight rebounds and two assists - offered her much support.
"Where's the help?" Foster observed of Gilbert's singular excellence in a game in which eight Mocs hit the court for at least five minutes of action. "Does it all have to come back on the shoulders of one person?"
His 900th victory achieved in a 58-41 win at Western Carolina notwithstanding, Foster has had far easier seasons than this one at every stop of his career: St. Joseph's, Vanderbilt, Ohio State and UTC. Saturday's loss dropped the Mocs to 15-9 overall and 6-4 within the Southern Conference. A second game against the SoCon's lone remaining undefeated team in conference play - Mercer - awaits in Macon, Ga., on Feb. 22.
Fumed Foster after the ETSU loss when asked about the six 3-pointers ETSU hit in the second half after going 0-for-8 behind the line in the first half: "In the first half, we followed every detail. In the second half, we got tired of details. In the NBA, with the best players in the world, players hit over 50 percent when they're open. With a hand in their face, that number drops to 35 percent. Given that, why would you not have your hand in a shooter's face? It's a lack of respect not to raise your hand. But we didn't do that. We didn't challenge them. Instead, we dared them to hit them and they did."
This newspaper's Gene Henley then asked Foster if he could raise the Mocs' level of toughness over the next three weeks, which is all that's left before the SoCon tournament begins on March 1.
Referring to a certain very recent Super Bowl MVP, Foster said, "Ask Nick Foles."
Nearby, Donna Foster couldn't hold back a small grin. She's heard her husband's rants hundreds of times. This time she got to listen while wearing an Eagles Super Bowl T-shirt.
Asked if the Eagles win was her biggest sports moment - not counting Jim's biggest victories, of course - she smiled and said, "It's up there. It's way up there."
No matter when he hangs it up, Foster always will be way up there on the list of the best basketball coaches ever, be they men or women.
Not one full year and only nine wins against 18 losses into his head coaching career following Saturday's 84-75 defeat against Mercer, UTC men's coach Lamont Paris said, "I've been around a couple of good ones - both Bo (Ryan at Wisconsin) and Jim.
"He's a great coach and great guy, but he's also a good guy to have in your (athletic) department. I won't give the details, because I don't want to embarrass this player. But I asked Jim for advice about something one day and he said something that was really funny, but also something that put the situation in perfect perspective. I know this already. Winning 900 games is hard, it's really hard."
It's been written more than 900 times through the years that being an Eagles fan is hard. After all, these are the folks who once booed Santa Claus. They expect disappointment at the end of football seasons the way most of us expect the sun to rise each morning.
But when Philly won - turning the Bud Light phrase "dilly, dilly" to "Philly, Philly" for their longsuffering fans - Foster instinctively knew what to do, if only because he's enjoyed so many big moments of his own through the years. Descending the stairs of his home to its lowest level, he searched his extensive wine collection for an appropriately rare bottle of vino and opened it.
Asked what she did, Donna smiled and said, "I drank it with him."
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com