The View From Here

Watching the One Shining Moments year in and year out, I always wondered what it was like for the Other Team. Every March, without exception, the students and alums of Mississippi get to watch Bryce Drew drain a legendary three over them. No matter how many titles John Calipari weasels for them before he bolts pending another NCAA investigation, Kentucky will never get to d-up Christian Laettner again.



Even this season, when a wireless company shows people around the country watching Maryland’s Drew Nicholas bury UNCW, that has to sting a bit, right?

Probably fitting this was the year MD got that commercial.

Despite years of Maryland basketball devotion, huge wins, crushing losses, and that game where Chris Wilcox missed a dunk so badly it nearly counted as a three the other way, I have never been on the receiving end of a buzzer beater. And you know what?

It’s actually not that bad.

That’s not to say it wasn’t devastating, especially after the ridiculous comeback from 16 down that probably would have made its way into Terp lore the other way. And having the careers of three seniors – Eric Hayes, Landon Milbourne and the boisterous Greivis Vasquez – end instantly like that certainly isn’t the best way to go.

But it was instant. No blown lead, no charge call, no seconds of tension during a years-long final defensive stand.

I think back, as I often do, to the great piece of cinematic genius known as Soylent Green. In a post-apocalyptic world, rather than die of starvation or disease, Edward G. Robinson opts to go to a government facility, have a huge steak dinner, and then get snuffed out painlessly and quickly. When that three fell, it was like ripping off a Band-Aid. It hurt for a second, but then that was it.

While certainly a good Maryland team, this wasn’t a great one overall. And let’s be totally honest: this loss doesn’t crack the top ten. It’s not like the 10 points in 54 seconds game against Duke, or the Final Four in 2001 against Duke, or really any loss to Duke. It was Michigan State. And it was fast.

That’s the key about getting beat by the buzzer. In every other kind of college basketball loss, there’s a melting down. There’s that run, that weird call, that feeling of impending doom. When it’s instant, there’s no impending anything.

You can’t compare it to baseball’s equivalent: the walk-off home run, because there’s too much time and tension. This buzzer beater started and ended in six seconds.

You can’t compare it to football’s equivalent: the shanked field goal, because in that case, you lament the blunder not the other team’s success.

You can’t compare it to soccer’s equivalent, because no one scores in soccer.

The agony of defeat isn’t commensurate with the thrill of victory on a buzzer beater. It’s all in all, pretty low cost. And it came at the hands of Michigan State, a team eerily similar to Maryland right down to the coach. And we even get an upside:

And least it wasn’t Duke.