Everyone has their own ways to deal with sports-related heartbreak. Some people? Directly to the bottle. Others cope by sharing morbid memes online and with their friends. Well-adjusted people may simply turn their TV off and go to bed.
Scott Van Pelt? Well, he goes to work. And after watching his beloved Maryland Terrapins suffer a heartbreaking defeat from his courtside seat in Xfinity Center on Wednesday night, Van Pelt did just that.
Yes. The Terps, in their most important game of the season, a must-win to keep their Big Ten title hopes alive, went from a last-second shot attempt to win the game for themselves to a half-court dagger that saw the Michigan State Spartans stun a capacity crowd in College Park.
Jubilation to stunned silence in the matter of seconds, and SVP lived it all. Then, about three hours later, the ESPN star sat in his anchor chair to host SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt.
“Sometimes, you just gotta be a grown-up, and you just gotta deal with things,” Van Pelt told his right-hand man Stanford Steve as he teed off the show with his “Best Thing I Saw Today” segment.
“Was it the best thing I saw today?” Van Pelt asked after playing the highlight. “It was an incredible shot. Wasn’t my favorite thing I saw today. But there’s times in life, Steve, when all you can do is tip the cap.”
Indeed, tip the cap to Sparty. And a tip of the cap to SVP, who can clearly cope with a devastating loss better than most.