Maryland Terrapin men’s hoops fans, like fans of most powerhouse basketball teams, are a pessimistic, doomsaying bunch. And with some good reason.

The Terps have a habit of doing well in the regular season and then flaming out in the Big 10 Tournament or the NCAA tournament. Or worse still, sometimes we start strong, finish poorly and don’t make the “Big Dance” at all.

(A note on the “we” I just used. First of all, I support using the royal “we” when discussing one’s favorite sports teams. We’re fans. Relating to our teams on a deep, cellular level is what we do. Secondly, no I did not attend the University of Maryland. I went to artsy-fartsy Bennington where we had, like, the intramural wind dance squad. I adopted the Terps as my own back in the Keith Booth days and have been a die-hard ever since.)

In my opinion, this year feels different. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Terps are sitting on top of the Big Ten standings—two games above Penn State. Here are five reasons why it’s time for Terps fans to table the doom and gloom and hop aboard the Testudo Train.

1. Anthony Cowan, Anthony Cowan, Anthony Cowan.

Just six feet tall, Anthony Cowan Jr. may never play in the NBA (although he deserves to at least get a shot), but he is, in some ways, the perfect college basketball player. The Terps point guard is a savvy senior and natural leader with an off-the-charts basketball IQ. Dude has amazing court vision and almost always seems to make the right play. He’s fiercely competitive in such a way that he takes losing personally. When the Terps are down, he elevates his own game and carries the team on his shoulders, making clutch play after clutch play. (See the final four minutes of our game against Michigan State.) Look at Anthony Cowan’s eyes late in a close game. There’s a fire there. He knows this is his last shot at a NCAA ring, and he’s going to do everything in his power to get us there. In Cowan I trust.

2. The Terps have Baltimore swagger and grit.

Two of the team’s starting five players are from Baltimore (both went to Mount Saint Joseph High School). Power forward Jalen “Stix” Smith is a dazzling superstar, a can’t miss NBA prospect, who can dunk, shoot, and defend the rim like a pro. He and Cowan make for a formidable—dare I say, unstoppable?—big man/guard combo.

Guard/forward Darryl Morsell is the glue guy—quite simply, the kind of kid you need on any championship team. A shut down defender who is usually tasked with guarding the other team’s best player, he can also use his athleticism to drive to the hoop or make a three, especially when he’s needed the most. Like Cowan, he has an extremely high basketball IQ. And like Cowan, he’s tough as nails.

3. They win in a variety of ways.

Coming from behind, eking out close games, blowing leads and winning anyway—the Terps have done it all. At this point, there’s nothing they haven’t seen. This is good, because they won’t panic if things don’t initially go their way in the tourney.

4. They are road tested.

Have you heard the Terps barking after a victory on the road? That’s because they consider themselves “road dawgs,” a point of pride and a designation that will serve them well in both the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments. It’s extremely hard to win on the road, especially in the Big Ten where large arenas are filled with loud, enthusiastic, and relentless fans, who try to distract you on the free throw line, taunt you when you miss a shot, and do everything in their power to will their own team to victory. The Terps won in a jam-packed Illinois arena, and then to back up that win, they won on the road against the most storied program in the Big Ten: Tom Izzo’s Michigan State.

5. They have Mark Turgeon. (Yes, Mark Turgeon.)

In some ways, the affable Terps head coach is the anti-Gary Williams. While Williams sweated through his suit, screamed at anyone within the sound of his voice, and generally went apoplectic on the bench, Turgeon is much more laid back. It’s not to say he doesn’t get fired up, but compared to the legendary Williams, he’s a Buddha.

This is one of the reasons why Terps fans have been a bit skeptical of Turgeon. There’s also the legitimate criticism that, in his nine years as head coach, he hasn’t taken the team deep into the tournament. (His best showing was the Sweet 16 in 2017.) There’s a feeling that his teams have underachieved or don’t step up in the big games. I generally think that once a program wins it all—as the Terps did in 2002—the fans get a little spoiled and expect to go deep in the tourney every single year. It doesn’t work that way. There are lots of other great programs in Division 1 basketball—and they’re all trying as hard as we are.

That being said, I think Turgeon has something special with his squad this year. Senior leadership, clutch play, unselfish play, and a camaraderie among the players that’s evident on the court. He certainly has the coaching skills to draw up the right plays—particularly on defense—and motivate his guys, who seem to adore him. The rest is up to them. After all, coaches don’t make plays, players do. This year, I think Turgeon has a squad well equipped to go deep in the tournament and silence the naysayers once and for all. Fear the Turtle!

We all want to be Mark Watts.

In contention to win $1 million on a sporting event, and not even know it. And, moreover, be betting against yourself, and not even know that. And be carelessly asleep while the outcome is unfolding. Then find out you won the million the next day.

It’s a true story.

Watts, a 60-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran and fire-alarm technician from Baltimore, beat out 1,196,756 people who submitted their brackets to Yahoo Sports’ Best Bracket Millionaire Contest to win $1 million.

He was just completely oblivious to his chances, and didn’t know he won until multiple Yahoo employees told him that he did. It took several emails and a few phone calls for him to believe it. “This still feels surreal!” he wrote back to one in a text.

Plus, while Watts actually needed Virginia to beat Texas Tech to win the challenge two Monday nights ago, he had a $50 side bet going with a longtime friend, who picked Virginia.

“So I’m actually not pulling for Virginia to win,” Watts told Yahoo! Sports in an interview this week, now aware of how absurd that fact sounds in retrospect.

Watts—like most people, a casual basketball fan at best—hadn’t checked how his free 68-team bracket entry was doing since the early rounds, when he saw he missed a few picks. Turns out Watts had one of the best brackets of any in Yahoo’s March Madness competition as it neared its end.

He missed seven picks total, but correctly nailed the final four teams, the title game and the champion, finishing with 179 out of 192 possible points. By then, between work and family time (with his wife, 14-year-old son, and 22-year-old stepdaughter), Watts had completely forgotten about his bracket.

He was in bed. He gets up around 4 a.m. each morning for his job with Baltimore County public schools, and heads to sleep by 8:30 p.m. The title game tipped off after 9:20 Eastern (Yeah, that was late) and went to overtime.

Of course, Watts barely researched any of the teams too. He also didn’t bother to name his digital entry; instead it was labeled the default “My Bracket.”

In the interview with Yahoo, Watts struggled to explain any method to his madness. Asked why he picked Auburn to get to the final four, he said, “That’s just one of the teams I guess I got lucky with.”

And why he picked Virginia?

“I remember hearing a lot about their defensive prowess,” he said. “How strong they were on defense. And how they were able to limit teams’ scoring.”

This is a win for the regular guy.

Born in New Bern, North Carolina, Watts enlisted in the Air Force as a young adult, and served as a technician in Alexandria, Louisiana; in England; and at Fort Meade, and ultimately settled here. He likes golf and football more than basketball.

Winning the cool million is “definitely life-changing,” he said. He plans to invest some of it (smart) and take care of some bills, then put some toward his wife’s 50th birthday (also smart), coming up in the fall, most likely a trip to somewhere with a beach. “This will definitely make it possible,” he said.

But he isn’t planning anything reckless. “It isn’t like winning the lottery,” he told Yahoo.

In this case, it sort of is.

With one emphatic and timely two-handed dunk, Mount Saint Joseph’s alum and Maryland freshman forward Jalen Smith officially let us know Thursday that March Madness is here for the next few weeks.

Breathe it in:

The Terps advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament’s round of 32 with a dramatic 79-77 win over Belmont University, the second-highest scoring team in the country, and the victory was punctuated by Smith’s slam that gave Maryland a three-point lead with just under two minutes left, in a critical and Baltimore-flavored sequence.

Smith’s former Mount St. Joe teammate, sophomore Darryl Morsell, fed Smith the ball on the play and, about 30 seconds earlier, Morsell, the 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard, delivered another key moment with a driving layup in which he drew a foul and drained the ensuing free throw to put the Terps’ up 74-71.

As a two-time state player of the year nicknamed “Stix” for his stringy frame, Smith had his “best game in a long time,” with 19 points and 12 rebounds, Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said. And with Morsell scoring a college career-high 18 points, it was if the MIAA or Baltimore Catholic League tournaments were playing out on the NCAA branded floor in Jacksonville, Florida, albeit in front of a much larger nationally televised audience.

“Our Bmore guys stepped up today,” Turgeon said during the team’s post-game press conference, with Morsell sitting beside him along with teammates Bruno Fernando (14 points, 13 rebounds) and Eric Ayala (12 points). “They were terrific.”

Smith and Morsell, a duo that played for three years together at Mount St. Joe and enjoyed much success at the high school level, powered the Terps’ to their first postseason win in three years, and helped make Turgeon’s hot seat a little cooler by holding off a projected Cinderella in Belmont to set up a game on Saturday against LSU. The game will air at 12:10 p.m. on CBS. (And, speaking of the TV broadcast, you can also catch Baltimore’s Evan Washburn working the sideline during other games throughout the tournament.)

There are more Bmore guys, too. Another Mount St. Joe alum, Phil Booth, who has program bragging rights after winning the NCAA championship last year with Villanova, scored 20 points on Thursday in Nova’s round of 64 win over Saint Mary’s. Booth has scored 122 career points in the NCAA tournament, most of anyone who’s playing in it right now.

After the win, he fielded questions from reporters like the seasoned tournament veteran he is.

“There’s a lot of distractions that come in the NCAA tournament,” Booth said, “so the best thing you can do is focus on your opponent, take care of your body, and focus in on what you have to do as a team.”

The defending champs play Purdue on Saturday night on TNT. (Catch your Law & Order reruns some other time.)

Elsewhere, if you’re looking for a local team to act as this year’s U Might Be Cinderella because, sadly, the UMBC Retrievers did not make the Big Dance this time, your best chances are to watch the 15th-ranked Towson women’s team play perennial power and second-seeded UConn at 7 p.m. Friday.

And if you want to see games in person, the shortest drive is to the Xfinity Center, where the Maryland women, seeded third, are hosting 14th-seeded Radford at 11 a.m. Saturday. Then Tennessee and UCLA play there immediately following in a first-round doubleheader, as the Madness continues and we watch transfixed.

No one from Baltimore can explain what it’s like to play, and excel, in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game better than Phil Booth. With Villanova’s 79-62 win over Michigan last Monday night, in front of 67,000-plus fans in San Antonio and millions more watching on TV, the Mount Saint Joseph’s alum became one of just 31 modern-era players to win multiple national titles, both of his coming in the last three years. And he’s still got one college season to go.

So, what’s it really like? All those people. All that attention. March Madness bracket winners depending on your every move. And even that weird elevated court, with the benches dug out along the sideline like a baseball stadium, designed so the well-paying fans in the first few rows can get a clear view of the action. 

“Yeah, you’re afraid of falling off [the court],” Booth said with a laugh this week from Villanova’s campus outside Philadelphia. “You just try to stay as focused as you can. There’s a lot of stuff going on, playing on that type of court in front of that many people. There’s a lot of media, a lot of questions every day about your team and yourself. A lot of people texting your phone when you’re advancing. You really just have to try to focus on what you need to do to win the game.” 

He’s used to that. At Mount Saint Joseph’s, Booth won more than 100 games, including 35 his senior season in 2014 en route to the Gaels’ third straight Maryland Catholic League title and the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championship.

At Villanova, the 6-foot-3 guard in 2016 came off the bench as a sophomore and scored a game-high 20 points in the Wildcats’ title game win over North Carolina. This year, as a redshirt junior team captain, after sitting out last season recovering from a meniscus injury in his left knee and breaking his right (shooting) hand in the middle of this season, missing four weeks, he finished averaging 10 points, 3.2 rebounds and three assists in 33 games. 

“It’s select company when you win two national championships in a three-year period,” longtime Mount Saint Joseph’s coach Pat Clatchey said. “Phil’s been through some injuries. I think when you deal with some adversity and you continue to fight and come out on top, that makes the journey even a little bit more rewarding.”

Indeed, Booth, the son of former Northeast High and Coppin State star Phil Booth Sr. and his wife, Robin, who played at Bowie State, now has ultimate bragging rights in the family and among the Gaels’ alums that train in the offseason in at the school’s new gym in Irvington. That group includes Ohio State senior Kam Williams and St. Bonaventure junior Jalen Adams, who each played in this year’s edition of March Madness. “I guess I do,” Booth said when asked about his status as top dog. And he probably even has the edge over Will Thomas, who in 2006 helped mid-major Cinderella George Mason to the final four, and Henry Sims, who played at Georgetown and four years in the NBA, though maybe not Jalen Smith, the Maryland commit who led the program to 31 wins this year and was the school’s first McDonald’s All-American, considered the highest individual honor you can get in high school basketball. 

After the last time Booth won a national championship (which is a nice thing to be able to say, isn’t it?), Clatchey treated his former star to a BBQ lunch when he returned home. “How would you like to take a national champion to lunch?” Booth texted his coach then. This year, during his next break from school — he’s on track to graduate with a communications degree this spring—Clatchey said he’ll take Booth to dinner, “maybe a little bit more expensive restaurant this time. I might have to start saving my quarters.”

“Upgrade to dinner?” Booth said when relayed the message. “That sounds good.”

Booth has one more year of eligibility left, so he’ll be back at Villanova next year. The defending champs are expected to be ranked in the preseason top-five. Booth will be a team leader once again, and has his sights set on a basketball career beyond college, too. “I want to play as long as I can,” he said. That way he can tell us all what it’s like to win wherever he ends up.

As fans are gearing up for MLB’s earliest opening day ever, many are also getting excited about the fun giveaways that fans can expect when entering Camden Yards. In past seasons, the Orioles have had staples like the Maryland flag jersey, floppy hats, and who can forget the Manny Machado garden gnome. Here at Baltimore, we have a bit of a collection and we can’t wait to get all of the new goodies this season will offer. 

Among the giveaways this season, many of the old faithful’s will return—caps, t-shirts, and bobbleheads—but the team has gotten creative with a few of the new ones. For example, the first 25,000 fans at the June 25 game against the Seattle Mariners will receive a Buck “Snow”alter snow globe to mark the new “Halfway to Christmas” celebration at Camden Yards. In addition to the snow globe, the organization is promising that some of the park will be transformed into a winter wonderland.

In past years, most giveaways have been on weekends, but to make them more accessible, the Orioles are offering more memorabilia on weekday games (with cheaper ticket prices).  Other weekday giveaways besides opening day, holidays, and t-shirt giveaways, will be on May 30 when fans will receive an Orioles cooler backpack, and June 12 with a Dylan Bundy bobblehead.

Also new this season, the O’s will also host a University Pride Night series with the UMBC Retrievers kicking it off at the April 20 game against the Cleveland Indians. Students, alumni, and fans are invited to cheer for the Orioles while also celebrating the Retrievers’ impressive run in NCAA tournament. 

The first 750 fans to purchase tickets for the game through the offer will receive an Orioles cap in UMBC colors. Although, it seems that the Orioles underestimated the popularity of the team when creating this promotion. 

“Due to an overwhelming response for UMBC Pride Night ticket packages, we are currently sold out,” the Orioles website said just 24 hours after the announcement of the offer. “However, we are working to get more caps in time for the 4/20 game.”

The Orioles are going above and beyond (or more like far, far away) and will also be hosting “Star Wars Night” at the Yard on Friday, May 11. The team be giving away a limited-edition O’Day-Wan Kenobi bobblehead and offer a pregame party 90 minutes before game time with Star Wars characters and fireworks after the game set to the movie soundtrack.

Another popular giveaway making a comeback this season is the Orioles Hawaiian shirt. The team has even increased the giveaway to the first 35,000 fans due to its popularity last season. Some other familiar paraphernalia that will return this season include the Memorial Day t-shirt, floppy hat, Orioles hoodie, and Maryland flag script jersey, all with updated designs.

Be on the lookout for some new and inventive promotions this season like an Orioles car emblem, a coaster set, and a puffy vest. For a full listing of the promotions and giveaways, check out the Baltimore Orioles website and mark off your favorites. 

It was fun while it lasted, this Cinderella story that was quickly written but will long be remembered. 

“Our students have already won,” UMBC president Freeman Hrabowski said Sunday afternoon, a few hours before the men’s basketball team that two days earlier launched the Catonsville university into the national consciousness played an unlikely second game in this year’s NCAA tournament, “and for the rest of their lives and for the rest of UMBC’s existence, and that’s forever, we will be known as the institution that made history.” 

That, of course, happened Friday night, when the Retrievers trended all over social media while becoming the first 16-seed to ever upset a No. 1 in the first round of the annual rite of spring known as March Madness. They did it by 20 points no less against the tournament’s top overall seed, Virginia. 

Just by having a reason to throw on their gold and black jerseys again Sunday for a second-round game against ninth-seeded Kansas State meant UMBC—U Must Be Cinderella, the University of Millions of Brackets Crushed, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County—had accomplished something that never had been done before.

Second-year coach Ryan Odom’s 15 Retrievers (of the Chesapeake Bay variety, as the nation learned this weekend) nearly extended the fairytale another week. They scrapped and clawed and willed their way against another major conference power for two-plus hours Sunday night, in what was a one-point game with less than six minutes left, but ultimately fell, 50-43.   

You wouldn’t have known the outcome afterward looking at Hrabowski, who was all smiles as he absorbed a hug from UMBC’s anthropomorphic, fuzzy brown mascot, True Grit, and led cheers in front of the small section of fans inside the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Instead of heading to the locker room, the team saluted their family, friends and faithful, too.

It seemed a lifetime of memories were made in a three-day span. The feel-good story. National attention. Free publicity. It’s what any relatively small public institution like the one located just off the Beltway southwest of the city, known more for its academics than athletics, dreams about. Just think, anyone who Googled enough or heard by word of mouth, could have learned the life story of the 52-year-old institution, its men’s basketball players, and staff. 

There was a first-person story written by Hrabowski on Sunday, which outlined the big picture and filled in the details. The university’s birth in 1963, as a school that would serve students of all races during a time when much of America was still segregated. The contributions of philanthropist Robert Meyerhoff to the cause. And the fact that school, population 14,000, is now is a top producer of African-American graduates who go on to earn PhDs in the sciences, and is the leading producer of ones who go on to earn MD-PhDs. 

There was the measured head coach Ryan Odom, who looked somehow like he had been here before. The son of former Wake Forest head coach, Dave, who was also a former Virginia assistant, was a ballboy for the Cavaliers when his father worked in Charlottesville. The 43-year-old inherited a program that went 9-51 the two years before his arrival and he’s now one of the hottest coaching commodities in the nation after leading a pair of 20-plus win seasons.

There were plenty of other articles in various outlets written about star Jairus Lyles, explaining his roundabout journey to suburban Baltimore by way of Virginia Commonwealth and Robert Morris universities. After being courted by big conference programs after last season, he elected to stay at UMBC and pursue a master’s degree, earning a 4.0 grade point average in the fall. 

There was the jubilant, unreal scene in the post-game locker room on late Friday night, after Lyles led the upset with 28 points, where a few bench players shared how the video game Fortnite may have partially inspired the historic victory. The team didn’t get back to its Holiday Inn hotel until 5 a.m., but when they did a welcome crew awaited. And so did the unexpected need to do laundry for a second and third day in town.

There were athletic communications staffer Zach Seidel’s tweets heard round the world. Followers of @UMBCAthletics now number more than 110,000, a 1,700% increase from tipoff of Friday night’s game.

And there was tiny point guard K.J. Maura. “I’m 5-foot-7 on a good day,” he told the media more than once. He well represented his home country of Puerto Rico and whose father celebrated his son by hoisting an oversized cardboard cutout of his Under Armour head-banded noggin for two games straight.

“I wrote one word on the board [in the locker room] about how I felt about them and it was proud,” Odom said Sunday night. “This was just really special.” It was a short story, yes, but an unforgettable one.

Looking back on it, maybe we should have seen the greatest upset in college basketball history coming. After all, how great is this? As the TNT broadcast crew told a national television audience afterward: “UMBC: U Might Be Cinderella.” 

The 15 members of the men’s basketball team from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County—as we’ve long known the school as—stunned the sports world, busted brackets across America, and sent Twitter into a frenzy.

The relatively tiny public research university in Catonsville of 14,000 students, recognized more for its science, tech, and engineering programs than anything else before Friday, will now be associated with something much different for as long as the memories of the historic night exist.

Like these…

In an unforgettable and surprisingly dominant performance, second-year coach Ryan Odom’s Retrievers, who got into the NCAA tournament on a last-second shot in the America East title game last Saturday, followed that up with an upset of the 68-team national bracket’s No. 1 overall seed Virginia, 74-54, in a first-round game in Charlotte, North Carolina.

UMBC became the first 16-seed to ever beat a No. 1 in a NCAA men’s tournament, in 136 such games played, and will now face Kansas State in the Round of 32 on Sunday. 

“It’s just amazing,” play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz said in the waning moments when it became clear the Retrievers would win, after yet another bucket by star graduate student guard Jairus Lyles, who finished with 28 points, coming in a variety of ways, while fighting through cramps in the second half. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

By that time, UMBC had already broken parts of the internet (including its own), as people from around the country looked for more information on the school with a four-letter acronym that was about to make history…

It’s hard to believe it all just happened. The game was tied at 21 before the Retrievers pulled away in the second half. Lyles scored 23 of his 28 points after halftime, and shot 9-for-11 overall.

Like him, the UMBC Athletics official Twitter account was a star of the evening, going from less than 6,000 followers before the game to more than 30,000 in the 30 minutes after. Whoever thumbed replies throughout the game to curious strangers and sports journalists alike did so with a healthy dose of hardscrabble sass.

As we said with a smidge less snark in a preview of the game on Thursday, when out-of-towners ask about the school, just say it’s University of Maryland-Baltimore County, of course. 

Now there’s another name in play—that Cinderella one. How crazy, how unlikely, how fun. How long will the story continue?

From the last-second shot that sent them to the NCAA tournament and their university president’s bromance with their star player Jairus Lyles, to the school’s acronym that might make a few people wonder, “What’s that?” when they see it on screen Friday night, and even the program’s Chesapeake Bay retriever mascot, True Grit, the UMBC men’s basketball team has a bit of that lovable underdog feeling around it right now.
 

Dare we say, Cinderella?
 

There’s only one men’s team from the Baltimore area, and all of Maryland and Washington, D.C., participating in March Madness this year (if you’re reading this it means you’re late filling out your office bracket), and it is the UMBC Retrievers, who started the craziness early by shocking favorited Vermont in the America East title game Saturday. Lyles, a Silver Spring native and a graduate student at UMBC, drained a 23-footer with 0.6 seconds left to complete the 65-62 comeback win.
 

The reward? The conference title, which gave mid-major UMBC its first NCAA tournament spot since 2008, in just head coach Ryan Odom’s second season.  

But that achievement also brought with it a David vs. Goliath task: a first-round match-up with the 68-team bracket’s No. 1 overall seed, Virginia, in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Cavaliers, the ACC champs with a 31-2 record, are expected to win by 21 points, according to the Las Vegas sports books, and they feature the top defense in the nation and potential future NBA talent.
 

“The way we won that game in Vermont was a storybook ending,” Odom said Wednesday. “That’s a lot to digest. We had a lot coming at us. And so I just encouraged the guys that we have to turn the page now. But now we’ve got a massive challenge staring us in the face, and if we don’t prepare the right way, it won’t go well.”
 

A 16-seed has never beaten a No. 1 in the NCAA men’s tournament. Traditionally these types of games have been blowouts. But Virginia coach Tony Bennett (bet he’s never heard a “can he sing?” joke), speaking to reporters this week, didn’t sound as if he found the Retrievers, who went 24-10 this season, a pushover.  

“Good basketball knows no division or limits,” he said. “They can spread the floor and shoot the three [pointer] at a high clip. They’re very versatile and defend solid. They know how to play the game. You watch all that stuff and you’re impressed.”
 

You’ll likely notice the Retrievers do-it-all 5-foot-8 point guard, K.J. Maura. He’s from Puerto Rico and is shortest player ever to win the America East Defensive Player of the Year award. He might need to be aggressive against Virginia’s super-efficient, slow-down offensive style.  

And the 6-foot-2 guard Lyles will look to crack the Cavs’ tough defense. “He’s very quick and dynamic,” Bennett said of the Retrievers’ leading scorer (20.2 points per game). Though sadly the Virginia coach didn’t mention as part of his scouting report the unlikely friendship that Lyles—a 4.0 GPA student pursuing an M.A. in education—has forged with UMBC president Freeman Hrabowski (they text), who probably couldn’t be happier at the moment.  

The 52-year-old public university in Catonsville—well-regarded for its science, tech, and engineering education—has received a generous attention boost this week. And it will get some more exposure, win or lose, on a national platform for roughly two hours Friday night. That’s UMBC, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, of course, if any out-of-towners ask.

Game Time: No. 16 UMBC (24-10) vs. No. 1 Virginia (31-2), Approx. 9:20 p.m. ET Friday
NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, South Region, First Round
TV: TNT
Live Stream: NCAA March Madness Live

Even manager Buck Showalter got in on the action, telling The Sun, “the thing I loved about it the most is that there was a Yankee fan trying to get into the field of play that he took it away from. That was probably the highlight for me.”

USA defeated the Dominican Republic 6-3 and went on to conquer Puerto Rico in the final, 8-0, to become the World Baseball Classic champions. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Keeping up with the Ravens.
With all the recent changes to the Ravens roster, let’s make sure we are all up to speed:

Hello: Running back Danny Woodhead, safety Tony Jefferson, and cornerback Brandon Carr.

Bye-Bye: Fullback Kyle Juszczyk and center Jeremy Zuttah are heading to San Francisco. Receiver Kamar Aiken is headed to Indianapolis. Defensive backs Shareece Wright and Kendrick Lewis were waived and safety Ladarius Webb was released.

Welcome Back: Quarterback Ryan Mallet, receiver Mike Wallace, linebacker Anthony Levine Sr., and defensive tackle Brandon Williams. (We’re particularly excited about Williams, both for his on-field performance and his killer dance moves.)

Good news for the Flacco-Pitta bromance fans: Tight end Dennis Pitta—Flacco’s favorite target and BFF—is staying in Baltimore. Pitta restructured his contract taking a pay cut for both the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Last year, Pitta led the league in tight end receptions (86) after being forced to take a two-year hiatus due to a hip injury. According to Ravens salary-cap expert Brian McFarland, Pitta’s cut will save the Ravens $2.5 million in cap space.

Lady Terps headed to the Sweet Sixteen.
Fear the Turtle! Despite receiving a lower than expected third seed, Maryland women’s basketball team continues to shine as they clinched their 13th NCAA Sweet Sixteen spot after defeating West Virginia 83-56 on March 19. West Virginia had a five-game winning streak going into the contest but the Maryland squad proved the Mountaineers were no match. At the end of the first half, freshman guard Destiny Slocum lands a buzzer-beating, three-point shot from beyond half court.

This marks the Terrapins 25th appearance in the NCAA tournament. Since 2002, coach Frese has led the team to eight Sweet Sixteens, six Elite Eights, three Final Fours and in 2006, the NCAA title. The Terps are set to face off against the Oregon Ducks in Bridgeport, CT on Saturday, March 25.

Ray Lewis releases controversial Black Lives Matter video.
This past Saturday, Ray Lewis put a video out on Facebook condemning the Black Lives Matter movement for ignoring black-on-black crime. Not surprisingly, the video quickly went viral and, as of Friday morning, had been viewed 4.4 million times. “I’m trying to figure out if black lives really matter,” Lewis said. “The March murder rate rose by 29 percent, but we’re not rioting in the streets over black-on-black crime . . . I know black lives matter, because I’m a black man, but man, stop killing each other. Man, we got to put these guns down in Chicago, Baltimore, Miami, man it ain’t that hard . . . If we don’t change what we’re doing, not only will our kids not have a future, but we might find ourselves extinct.” You can watch the full video below.

Wal-Mart needs a geography lesson.
Though it was first pointed out this past summer, the issue came to a head this week. Wal-Mart has been putting out “Terps” t-shirts, but using the state shape of Massachusetts instead of Maryland. They both start with M, right? Probably the worst part was when a customer called them out this past week, the store’s initial response was, essentially, actually your state is shaped like that because it dips down. Finally, another store representative got it right, issuing a formal—and pretty creative—apology: “We’re so embarrassed we may never stick our head out of our shell again! Thanks for guiding this lost Terrapin back to MD! -Sonny” We’re not sure who Sonny is, but we’d offer him beer at a tailgate any day.

Ravens make power free-agent moves.
Maybe we can call them the three W’s or, perhaps, Triple-U? Regardless, it is clear after the signing of tight end Benjamin Watson last week, safety Eric Weddle on Monday, and wide receiver Mike Wallace on Tuesday, the Ravens front office is not playing around. Coming off its first losing season in eight years, the team (predominantly Ozzie Newsome) had to do some pretty aggressive wheeling and dealing to acquire the three players. First, they had to wrestle Watson away from the New Orleans Saints, then they apparently didn’t let Wallace leave the building before he signed, and a 90-minute phone conversation between Weddle and Ravens assistant GM Eric DeCosta did the trick. “The Ravens landed the best free agent remaining on Monday in Weddle, added the best deep threat available in Wallace and signed a tight end coming off a career season in Watson,” ESPN’s Jamison Hensley wrote. “These are significant steps to turn around a 5-11 team.”

We like President Obama’s March Madness picks.
Frankly it would ruin the fun to get political on Friday Replay. But, as loyal Terps fans, there is one thing we can agree on: We like President Obama’s bracket. For the second year in a row, and the third time while in office, the President picked the Terrapins to advance to the Sweet 16. This means he is predicting that Maryland will beat his home-state team, the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, only to fall to Kansas, who he has picked to win it all. Not a bad bode of confidence.

Though they may not get as much court time or mentions on the highlight reel, two Baltimore natives are making a big impact on the men’s and women’s Terps basketball teams. Senior forward Jonathan Graham and redshirt freshman forward A’Lexus Harrison both bring energy, teamwork, and defensive ability to their squads as they prepare for the NCAA Tournament.

Graham, a Catonsville native and Calvert Hall alum, is following in the footsteps of his father, Ernie Graham, who was a Terps great that also wore No. 25, a jersey that now resides in the rafters of Xfinity Center in College Park. “The more I kept hearing about his story, watching him in the early years, it really inspired me,” Graham says. “The original mission I had when I was 10 years old was to go to Maryland and break his scoring record.”

Similarly, Harrison knew from a young age that Maryland was her dream school. “When I was 12, we came to a game,” she recalls. “The intros were about to start, the lights went out, and the fight song was playing. It was mesmerizing to me. I looked up at my mom and told her I was going to play here one day.”

Of course, between the dream and reality was a lot of hard work for Graham and Harrison, would pushed themselves to the limit in high school.

“We recognized his potential right away,” Calvert Hall head basketball coach John Bauersfeld says of Graham. “He played varsity as a freshman and, by sophomore year, his numbers were tremendous. After that, he did such a good job of buying into the team player part of it, whether he was cheering on the bench or bettering himself as a defender.”

“In high school, I really learned that it wasn’t about one guy,” Graham says. “And Coach taught me how to be a good defender because I wasn’t when I got there.”

For Harrison’s part, it came down to inherent confidence and early-morning motivation. Digital Harbor head coach Patrick McDonald would pick her up at her Lansdowne home for 6 a.m. practice.

“I wouldn’t knock or blow my horn,” McDonald says. “I would flash my lights so she had to be ready and waiting. She never missed a morning practice for two years. She brought that energy to her play. She has a terrific motor and could sprint down the court so fast it made your jaw drop. She plays relentless basketball.”

Her relentless style helped Harrison lead the Digital Harbor Rams to a title her senior year and Maryland came knocking. But a setback came her true freshman year when she got appendicitis and had to sit out.

“That was a big step back for me,” she says. “But I also got a year to just learn and adjust, to both college life and a faster, more physical college game.”

Graham’s basketball career also took an unorthodox path, as he played for Penn State for two years before transferring to Maryland to be with his family while his dad was going through surgeries.

“My dad isn’t the most patient guy in the world,” Graham says with a laugh. “So I wanted to help my mom out. Plus, we always dreamed about me possibly coming to Maryland.”

Now, Graham is living out that dream with successful performances like a career-high 16 points and six rebounds against his former team Penn State in February. And, now he’s looking to prepare for the men’s basketball team’s first NCAA tournament bid in five years. The team was seeded a controversial fourth and also in a tough region with Kentucky and Kansas.

“We’re definitely going in with a chip on our shoulder,” he says. “The team’s been great about that all year—playing with something to prove. We ended up second in the Big 10 behind a really good Wisconsin team. A lot of things people thought wouldn’t happen, we’ve made happen. I’m really excited for our first game against a really good Valpo [Valparaiso] team. The elephant in the room is that Kentucky is in the region, but we’re not looking too far down that road yet.”

The women’s team has had an incredible year, going practically undefeated and winning the Big 10 Championship, despite losing last year’s star player Alyssa Thomas to the WNBA. Unlike the men, they’re extremely happy with their No. 1 seed, which Harrison attributes to successful team chemistry.

“We’re more than a team; we’re sisters,” she says. “As a whole, we’re so excited for the tournament. For me, I’ve been through it, but never been able to play before. I’ve worked all year to prepare myself for this moment. And now we have a big target on our backs. Every team wants to send Maryland home.”

On the court, Graham and Harrison’s play styles are similar, with strong defense and impressive rebounds. Off the court, they both say they want to work with young children and motivate them the same way they were inspired by their parents and coaches like Bauersfeld and McDonald.

“With Maryland being close to my heart,” Graham says. “I have a little extra motivation to bring Maryland back where it belongs—to the NCAA Championship.”

Catch Graham and the men’s squad play at 4:40 p.m. on Friday on TNT and Harrison and the women’s team on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. on ESPN2.