First Taste of Big Dance, a New Future for UMBC Athletics

The UMBC women's basketball team made Retriever history and lifelong memories for players, coaches and fans last weekend when it faced five-time national champion Connecticut in the NCAA Division I Tournament on March 18. Just reaching that national stage was a substantial development for UMBC athletics, marking the first time a UMBC women's or men's basketball team earned a bid to the NCAAs since UMBC athletics moved to Division I in 1986.

"This has been a critical building block for our women's basketball team and our athletic department," athletic director Charlie Brown said after UConn took advantage of UMBC's shooting troubles and pulled away for a 82-33 first-round victory on its home court, before 6,824 fans in the Hartford Civic Center.

"UMBC is a winner because of all the exposure we have received, being televised live on ESPN2 and covered in a number of prominent newspapers in the northeast," said Brown. "We'll only get better. We should not consider this a losing effort. We should be very proud. And UConn's coaching staff and players showed a lot of class to us during this experience."

It will be difficult, Brown said, to place an accurate dollar value on the exposure gained for UMBC athletics and the university in the days leading up to the game and the live coverage on ESPN2.

The Retrievers were surprise winners of the America East Conference Tournament, a performance that earned them an automatic berth in the NCAAs. Fifth-year coach Phil Stern and his assistants expect that the team's success will enhance future recruiting efforts.

A boisterous and loyal group of roughly 300 Retrievers supporters, dressed in gold-and-black T-shirts, cheered the Retrievers throughout. Many of these fans positioned themselves in the lobby of the team hotel to greet the Retrievers upon their post-midnight return. Even a traveling group of UMBC musicians, under the guidance of leader Jari Villanueva, received acclaim in the Hartford Courant as "the peppiest pep band" among the eight schools that traveled to Connecticut for the opening round.

The final score belied some successes for UMBC against a UConn program that has won five national championships. UMBC's offense worked successfully for open shots. However, few of those shots fell the Retrievers' way. The team's field-goal percentage for the game was 25 percent, easily the team's lowest this season.

"This has been an unbelievable week for us and our university," Stern said at his postgame press conference. "I think our kids handled themselves just unbelievably and I'm so proud of them. This was a great environment for us."

Said UConn coach Geno Auriemma, a legendary figure in women's collegiate basketball, "I'd said earlier that I wish we weren't playing them because I'd like to watch them play. I'm a big fan of their deliberate style of play on offense. A team like UMBC makes you have to think. Phil has smart kids and they play an intelligent style of basketball."

It was the final collegiate game for UMBC seniors Brittnie Hughes, Heather Luttrell, Nicole Dixon and Sharri Rohde. Rohde acknowledged that the immediate impact of the loss was painful. However, it did not dampen what players called one of the greatest weeks in their lives.

"Winning an America East championship was amazing," Rohde said. "I never had a feeling like that, and then playing at the Civic Center in front of that huge crowd and playing against one of the best teams in the nation. I'll just look back and I'll think about that and just think about what a great experience that was and how so many people don't have that opportunity. I'll look back and I'll smile."

From the moment the Retrievers qualified for the NCAAs on March 11, their accomplishment has been celebrated by observers inside and outside the UMBC family.

"It's not every day that a pack of Retrievers turns into Cinderella," a Baltimore Sun (Tuesday, March 13) editorial noted. On Friday, March 16, the Down and Dirty Dawg Band, the UMBC dance team and UMBC's cheerleading squad led a send-off pep rally in the lobby of the Retriever Activities Center (RAC). Turnout and support were boisterous despite a steady, cold rain.