#53. UMBC (Friday, March 16, 2018)

#53. UMBC (Friday, March 16, 2018)

What was your best day…of witnessing something miraculous (that you had absolutely no involvement in)?

March 16, 2018 started inconspicuously enough. A 16-seed had never beaten a 1-seed in March Madness and the six of us were going to dinner at a Vietnamese Pho place. The crew:

  • David Gu – research assistant (RA) in the risk office and ringleader of all social activity in the department
  • Mark Bacsik – risk analyst, came from a farm in Saskatchewan
  • Aleks Kostic – the super-responsible RA in my team who would make his own quinoa lunches and go to bed at ten every day
  • Charles Lewis – rotational analyst in my team at the time, almost made the Olympics as a mountain biker, wears a suit every day
  • Shawn Hausler – quiet credit analyst, small guy but able to hold his liquor better than all of us (me included)
  • Me

When we eat, the big thing that slips out is that one of the new RAs at our institution used to be my high school classmate. Which contradicts what she had been telling all of them that she was only 22 (five years younger). That’s apparently earth-shattering news, but I warn them all not to say anything to her, because it’s a very sensitive topic for her. Taking Jeff for his word, they don’t.

Then we get to David’s apartment and start drinking. We start playing Halo 4: but while Shawn’s the most experienced guy there, Aleks and Charles make a good tag-team and win something like twelve matches in a row…until they have to both go home (Charles’s bedtime was at ten as well).

At this point, I (and my terrible hand-eye coordination) somehow agree to play free-for-all Halo with swords – with David, Shawn, and Jagmeet (who has just arrived with a box of Steam Whistles) – with a sip at every death, and a chug for lowest kills. We go through a couple of rounds of that. Then I check my phone and UMBC (16-seed) is up by 10 over Virginia (1-seed) mid-way through the second half.

Holy crap. Are we about to see history in the making here?

Right away, we pause the Halo, David sets up the link of the TV to his computer, and he starts the stream.

UMBC holds the lead, threes keep falling, they get a few stops against Virginia, they’re up by 15 as the minutes tick away. Soon enough, the game ends with a 21-point margin and the epitome of madness has just taken place.

Then we get back to Halo, with ships. Then we do Halo with swords again. Darren, another RA, arrives. And we do one more round. By this point, Jagmeet has fallen asleep on David’s couch. The other four of us do some NHL 2017 shootouts, and by the end of it Jagmeet has rolled off.

We don’t really know what time it is now, but the four of us somehow make our way downstairs, and I’m able to call and Uber to take me home.

At home, I drink my five bottles of water, fall into bed, and wake up just in time to watch Villanova vs. Alabama tip off at noon on Saturday. The only time I move from my couch between then and the end of Sunday night is to go to sleep and to pick up the extra-large Domino’s pizza that I ordered1.

By the time I get off the couch on Sunday night, UMBC has already been eliminated. But their legacy will always remain.

  1. Which makes me almost miss the moment Loyola Chicago hits the dagger against Tennessee.