A sweat-drenched Donovan Sanders returned to the bench for a timeout late in the first half, looked up at the scoreboard, and saw his team down by 18 points against BYU, its hopes of victory already dashed.
“We just need an 8-0 run,” the Mississippi Valley State men’s basketball captain shouted, earnest in his belief that it could happen, not wanting to acknowledge the reality that it almost never does.
MVSU is the country’s worst college basketball team. It’s a poor program financially, and plays nearly its entire nonconference schedule on the road, where the Delta Devils haven’t won a nonconference game in more than 18 years. Why do they do it? Money. MVSU traverses the country for “buy games” against juggernaut programs who routinely win by 50 points or more, funding the school’s entire athletic department.
Sanders is like many of his teammates. Happy to be there, thankful for the chance to play at the highest level, and desperate to win. His only Division I offer came from MVSU. They try to relish the moment, even if they’re ill-equipped for it.
The team had woken up at 2 a.m. the morning prior, driven out of Mississippi to Memphis, then flown to Salt Lake City, where the players bussed to their hotel in Orem for their game on Nov. 23 at BYU. After a brief rest, film study, team dinner, and a two-plus hour practice in high altitude, their elongated day wrapped up 21 hours after it began.
Such is life for the Delta Devils, who crisscross the nation with the odds perpetually stacked against them. Forced to play elite programs just to make ends meet. They’re the Washington Generals of college basketball, paid to lose spectacularly every time they take the court.
Against BYU, the run that Sanders had asked for never came. Instead, minutes later, BYU hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to send MVSU to its locker room down 28 points.
“We good, bro,” Sanders told the team as he entered the locker room, the noise of a hostile, fully-packed student section and band playing behind them. “Keep grinding.”
“We know it’s coming. A couple turnovers, we’re good, we’re back”…
…and so on.
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