The Tartan

By: Benner Rogers

As a proud member of Carnegie Mellon’s Finest Kiltie Band, I was not exactly excited for Friday’s women’s basketball game. Though I love playing in the band, the thought of a repeat of the NYU game left me clinically depressed. The men’s game against Emory had been disappointing. I don’t claim to be a sporty person, but it doesn’t take extensive knowledge of basketball to know that you usually don’t want to lose by 25 points. It’s safe to say that I was mentally preparing myself for a blowout.

I’m one of the rare few who prefer women’s basketball to men’s basketball. My mother played basketball in college, so when a game was playing on the TV it was almost never a men’s game. Being a woman myself (shocker, I know), and having had a disastrous basketball career that lasted all the way until high school, I just don’t enjoy men’s basketball as much as women’s. This meant that the loss I thought was inevitable was just going to be that much more painful.

The first quarter of the game seemed to confirm my greatest fears. Our players had only hit a third of their shots, and when Emory rose to a 19 point lead I gave up hope entirely. I assumed that, like the NYU game, this was going to be a murder and I would be forced to watch a humiliating defeat. I knew in my heart that it was already over.

I was wrong.

By halftime the Tartans had pulled it back to an eight point deficit. By the fourth quarter we were only a handful of points behind. Hope once again began to flicker within me. Maybe, just maybe, I would be proven wrong. We were making shot after shot, but so was the other team. Despite my misgivings, I felt myself being pulled back into the game. As the scores grew nearer, I allowed myself to get caught up in the excitement of the crowd. And then, the unthinkable happened: we hit overtime.

The basketball genes which had been long dormant inside of me finally awoke. My great-grandfather had played basketball, my grandfather had played basketball, my mother had played basketball, and I may not play basketball, but I am a member of the blessed Kiltie Band and I was going to watch some basketball. I finally understood my heritage, the very fabric of my being. It all comes back to women’s basketball.

Something had changed. Though our players were clearly exhausted, they had an air of determination rivaled only by those in life-or-death situations. And my, I had never seen such a beautiful sight. The Tartans sank shot after shot, one after the other, barely giving Emory time to breathe. It was as if the past hour and a half had never happened. I could see the Emory players’ broken spirits reflected in their eyes as they frantically called all of their remaining timeouts. But the Tartans could not be stopped. This is how you play basketball. There would be no defeat today, only the sweet, sweet taste of victory. 

To the Carnegie Mellon Women’s Basketball Team, thank you. You have saved me from college-basketball-induced misery, and I will never doubt you again.