“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”
– Earnest Lawrence Thayer
U.M.B.C.
This will be the easiest commentary I have ever written in twenty-three years.
Be honest. How many of you would have known what UMBC stood for without looking it up before about 11:00 PM EDT tonight? The University of Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers have done the impossible. They have beaten not just a #1 seed, but the number one seed in the entire tournament, the prohibitive favorite to win the championship, the Virginia Cavaliers. At tip-off of tonight’s game, the other three #1 seeds had already done their duty, handily defeating their sacrificial lambs. The 16 seeds were 0 and 135, surely headed for 0 and 136. And then History called, and the Retrievers answered the phone.
I thought it amusing that the game was tied at 21 at the half, but I gave no thought at that point to UMBC having a chance to actually win. After all, other 1 seeds had walked this way before – playing poorly for 20 or even 30 minutes only to wake up and put away their lowly opponents. Sure, we have seen a few close calls over the years – Fairleigh Dickinson, East Tennessee State, Western Carolina (remember, Purdue fans?) – but it will never actually happen, right? So I flipped over to watch the Auburn-College of Charleston game.
After College of Charleston failed to be the third 13 seed to win in a single year for the first time ever, I flipped over to UVA vs UMBC, fully expecting a double-digit lead. A double-digit lead I saw indeed, but not in favor of the Wahoos. As I started to realize what just might be happening, I went upstairs to fetch my two youngest kids. No way was I letting them miss something this historic.
“Graham, you need to come look at the TV.”
“Why, what’s wrong with it?”
“Just come and see.”
“Ashlyn…” “I’m not dressed, Dad.” “Get dressed and come downtstairs. You need to see this.”
As they joined me in my office one at a time, all I had to do was point. The reaction was the same. First a look of confusion, followed by a slacked jaw, followed by wide eyes and then a long, “Noooooo waaaayyyyyyy.” My senior, Amber, walks in a couple of minutes later, returning from her jazz choir’s victory at the state jazz festival.
“What are you guys all doing in here?”
Dad points at the TV. Slack jaw. Wide eyes. You know the rest. It was about that time that my phone started blowing up. The world was waking up to history in the making. “Are you seeing this?” my phone says. Am I seeing this? Is the Pope Catholic? I am glued to the set, not even thinking about changing the channel even as the lead grew and grew and grew and the outcome became a foregone conclusion. There were no other games happening in my world at that moment. This was history. We may never see this again.
So how did this happen? How could a 31-2 team with the best defense in the country, only allowing 54 points a game throughout the season, give up 74 points to THEM? I am sure the pundits will talk about it all week. The sports world will talk about it for decades. My kids will tell their kids the story long after I’m gone. All I can say is that this Virginia team won all season by playing defense. They were not a high-powered offense, and when their most potent offensive weapon, sixth man De’Andre Hunter broke his wrist, many worried that it would hurt their chances to make the Final Four. No one worried it would hurt their chances to win a single game. This team is built to suffocate opponents, not come from behind or win a shootout. And so when Jairus Lyles started taking over the game and piling on the points in the second half, the Cavaliers were in uncharted territory. They couldn’t stop Lyles, which hadn’t happened to them before, and they couldn’t score points in bunches, which they had never needed before.
“These are the moments you dream of,” Lyles said after the game. Indeed. This is the stuff of 12-year-olds in the driveway, calling their own imaginary game as they make the winning shot. This will be the fixture in One Shining Moment at tournament’s end, even if the Retrievers don’t win another game. This is a tournament where the headline will become the footnote, the national champion will become the afterthought instead of the lead story, overshadowed forever by the most improbable upset in sports history. For one shining moment, these Retrievers are kings of the world, instant legends in their own time.
To borrow another of my hated sports cliches, this is why they play the game. This is precisely why we watch sports, why we find them so compelling. It is because the best team does not always win. As the Proverb says:
“The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” – Proverbs 9:11
1-135. That’s the new record for 16 seeds in the tournament. 1-135. Chisel the name of the one in stone, the UMBC Retrievers. Well done, men. Well done. Nothing can take away your place in history.
Best Reaction To The UMBC Win I Saw On Facebook
And Then Other Stuff Happened
Believe it or not, seven other games were played tonight. A couple are worth mentioning.
- You Can’t Beat Destiny…Unless You Are UMBC – I guess it is too much to ask for history to strike twice on the same evening. With two 13 seeds already advancing to the round of 32 (Buffalo and Marshall), the College of Charleston was trying to become the third 13 seed to advance in the same year for the first time ever. They came close, but it was not to be, as the Auburn Tigers escaped to face another set of Tigers, those from Clemson, on Sunday.
- The Streak Continues – As I had mentioned earlier, ever since the inception of the First Four in Dayton, at least one of the “play-in” 11 seeds has advanced to the round of 32 every year. This year, I guessed it would be St. Bonaventure, but I should have known better. Instead, it was the Syracuse Orange and their maddening zone defense that notched the victory over TCU and became the second 11 seed to advance this year along with Loyola of Chicago.
- An Incredible Sum – Have a look at the South region. The sum of the seeds of the remaining eight teams in that region is a whopping 66! Overall there are six double-digit seeds remaining in the field, by no means any kind of record, but that one 16 left on the bracket looms large over the rest. Cinderella has arrived at the dance. Can she last until midnight?
- Oh, The Humanity! – Have a look at the Carnage Report. It shows that 380 contestants had Virginia in the Final Four, and 156 had them as national champs.
- By The Numbers – Alert minion Adam Lamb sent me a text this evening asking if the 50 available bonus points this year were the most ever in the first round. It turns out the answer is no, it isn’t. Thanks to Adam’s own research, I can tell you that the top year was 2012 with 66. If you recall, that was the year two 15 seeds won on the same day, an unprecedented feat in its own right.
Best Alias Awards
And now it is time to move on to a favorite pastime of our contest, the best alias awards. Let’s begin with the categorical honorable mentions.
Best Political Aliases
- David “Trump’s Former Secretary of Bracketology” Bauchspiess
- Jason “Kim Jung Un’s Target Bracket” Cooper
Best Puns
- Mac “And Cheese” Allen
- Jordin “LeBlonde James” Booher
- Gregory “Haas No Idea Who to Pick” Harman
- David “Game of Jones” Jones
- Jason “Ex-savory Picks” Roehl
- Jordan “you wish you were this” Wise
- RJ “Who, Where, What, Why &” Wynn – Best of Category
Best Cultural, Literary, or Musical References
- Anderson “Ando Clarissian” Cooper
- Ada “These are not the picks you are looking4” Lam
- Wayne “The Rain Falls Mainly On The Plain” Murray
- Katie “Nobody puts Katie in the corner” Muschalik
- Gene “A Connecticut Yankee in Basketball Court” Pollastro – Best of Category
- Brad “Get off my lawn” Schafer
- Gary “My bracket, Jesus’ words – Both in Red!!!” Tucker
Best Nods To The Contest Commentary
- Evan “Dilly Dilly!” Gidley
- Philip “So Your Saying There’s A Chance” Goodwin
- Jay “Round 1 goes to Houston Man Bun” Namboothiri
- Luke “Come on man bun guy” Shannon
- J.R. “I was born a Ramblin’ Man” Shrader
- Shane “Pronounced “Smith”” Vaiskauskas – Best of Category
Aliases That Made Me Literally LOL
- Richard “McGruff already went” Schrimpf
- Dustin “oops I ripped my pants” Van Sloten
- Brock “Big Baller Brackets” Zagel – Best of Category
Best References To The Latest NCAA Scandals
- Sammy “Pickers need Paid like the Players” Brauen
- Bryson “Only picked teams w/ players implicated” Davis
- Rob “Cheaters win in the NCAA” Fair
- Ralph “Arizona is Instant Vacate-tion” Forey – Best of Category
- JC “Pitino’s Girls” Thomas (Ouch!)
Odds and Ends
- Best Use of Latin – Andrea “In omnia paratus” Bauschek (“Ready for Anything”)
- Best Rhyme – Scott “Tower of” Bower
- Best Obscure Reference To xkcd – Jason “Little Bobby Tables” Buckner
- Best Reference to a D3 School (tie)
- Amber “Why isn’t Rose-Hulman int he bracket?” Little
- Gary “What No Cornell?” DeLong
- Good To Hear From An Old Friend – Jamie “in this through thick and thin” Prime
- Been In The Contest Forever With The Same Alias – Mike “Skid Booles” Sines
- Most Incomprehensible – Phil “Call me when your streak hits 111” Stump
Most Uniquely Hilarious
Typically I award the Burma Shave award to the Fairchild Family every year. Years ago they realized that the contestant picks page lists all entries in alphabetical order. So, they started creatively coordinating their aliases to read out some funny or clever saying, much like the sequential Burma Shave road-side signs back in the day. This year the Fairchilds took it to a whole other level. Their aliases form the lyrics to a song that I had to look up to know what it was, and boy am I glad I did. The song is a sort of parody in the spirit of “What Does The Fox Say” but not nearly as annoying and way funnier. It is built around the idea that the lyrics were derived via bad lip reading of scenes from the Dagoba training segment of The Empire Strikes Back. If you haven’t seen it, you simply must.
Finalists
And now for this year’s Final Four and grand champion of the best alias awards.
- Third Runner Up – Ryan “Alias winner? Only time Vitale” Helton
- Second Runner Up – Tamara “My Cup Boiler Over” Dunbar
- First Runner Up – Josh “I put the MAN in” Pearman
- Grand Champion – Mark “Anti Irish Apostrophe Discrimination” OMaley, so chosen because my ancient website will not accept the apostrophe in his name! Well played, sir. Well played.
Round One Awards
And finally, some plain old boring first round awards.
- The Top Prognosticator award for the round of 64 goes to seven contestants who picked 27 out of 32 games correctly: Ryan Lamb, Jan Benshoof, Jeff Cardwell, Stacy Schulte, John Hart, Emma Dean, and Jenni Garten.
- The Normally This Would Be Bad, But Thanks To UMBC, It’s Not award goes to Matthew Hickey, whose very strategy of picking ALL upsets virtually guaranteed him the fewest number of wins, 9. Nevertheless, “Captain Underdog” finds himself in 7th place…for now.
- The Upset Stomach Award, once again sponsored by Pepto Bismol, goes to the three minions who picked all nine first round upsets correctly: Matthew Hickey (of course), Tim Warren, and Veronica Ramirez.
- The Crash And Burn award goes to April Adams who fell from a high of 21st to 226th.
- The Comeback Kid award goes to Wayne Murray, who climbed from a low of 750th all the way up to 105th.
- The This Simply Isn’t Fair award goes to former first place contestant Isen Schafer, now in 20th.
- The Who’s In 27th Place? Your mom! award goes to Kate “Mom” Ginty. Way to go, Mom!
- The Apparently, They Are Playing Your Song award goes to Tim “Where’s the band?” Warren, currently in 2nd place and just two points off the lead.
- And finally, the Green Jacket award goes to our round one leader in the clubhouse, Veronica “SWOOSH!!” Ramirez, sporting a win/loss percentage just over .500 but vaulting to the top on the strength of the UMBC pick. Veronica’s strategy was interesting, picking three 16s and then Villanova, but not advancing any 16s to the second round. Obviously hoping to hit the 16-seed-makes-history jackpot, her approach just might pan out. Stay tuned.
And with that, I have run out of energy and inspiration for one night. Things get easier for me from here on out, with only one version of the commentary required per game day. Until tomorrow night then, minions, I bid you adieu.
The Wizard of Whiteland