2025-26 UMBC Retrievers
093 · 2026-03-18 · medium
Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Lord Tennyson sure didn't know shit about tennis, a sport that treats those two impostors just the same. Emma Raducanu is the 65th best player on the WTA Tour. She's won a grand total of one singles tournament at any level: the 2021 US Open, which took ten match wins instead of seven. She's cycled through nine coaches in five years, had seven time-off injuries (including current post-viral symptoms), and hits the ball 10 mph slower than the women in the top ten. Raducanu is half-Romanian and half-Chinese, plays for Great Britain, and is one of BBC Sport's favourite punching bags because of the Özil Effect. If I were Emma Raducanu – and everyone knows I'm just as stunningly beautiful as she is – why the hell would I still be playing tennis? Why bother climbing an impossible mountain one's already been to the top of? Sic transit gloria, life's too short, etcetera and so forth. Anyway, basketball. A No. 16 seed taking out a No. 1 is just about as rare as a qualifier winning a major, but the problem is that the odds of a second lightning strike in your area are one, colon, fifty zeroes. This is the unbearable lightness of the UMBC Retriever, destined for eternity's remainder to endlessly discuss 2018, how that game against Virginia was tied at halftime, how they ended up winning by 20, and Jarrrrrrius Lyyyyles. The school's social media feed is a version of "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen that's gone on for eight years. It took a 12-game win streak just to get back to the NCAA Tournament in 2026, where a different and very deserving No. 16 took them out in the PIG. If you're a UMBC alum or parent, this is your forever-curse, and I am so very sorry you have to go through this for the rest of your lives. If you're a free-agent "underdog fan," with no such direct burden on your soul, it's full-flowering springtime. Cast your eye, pick another pretty girl for your Big Dance date, love and love and love again.