During my junior year of college I played a fair amount of college football on the PlayStation 2 with the guys in the next room over in my suite.

I was not particularly good at this game, which I attributed to spending most of my video game years with the Nintendo 64 or Dreamcast and their very different controllers.  I was probably just not very good.

In the early spring of that year, my suitemate Jason and I increasingly talked each other into the necessity of expanding our options to also include a college basketball game.  We eventually did what any fine young men in Selinsgrove, PA, did those days and took our quest to Wal-Mart.

We found ourselves with an incredibly tough choice.  There were two college basketball games, one made by EA and the other by 989 Sports.  EA certainly had a better reputation, but with that came a cost.  I believe their game was around $35 and the 989 version was more like $20.

Since neither Jason nor I actually owned a PS2, it seemed silly to shell out for the more expensive game, so we ended up with this:

On the cover is Maryland basketball hero Juan Dixon, who the previous year had led the Terps to a national championship.  When it came time for us to choose which team we would control, we picked Maryland as well.

You’ve never heard of this game because it’s not a good game.  The graphics, even by standards of its time, were not good.  The process of recruiting players was annoying and unnecessarily complex.  None of the players have actual names.

But it was extremely fun to play in a goofy way.  You could sort of put together from jersey numbers and what year the guy was who they were supposed to be.  Maryland had a mystery man who came off the bench, a senior small forward if I recall, who was absolutely unstoppable.

In a game in which player ratings went up to 99, this guy was something like a 62.  He had no business even being in the arena.  But when you gave him a chance, he seized it like every sports hero movie there has ever been.  He rarely missed a three pointer.  I don’t mean he was pretty good at shooting from beyond the arc, he was un.stoppable.

Two guys in his face? No problem.  Transition three?  Fine.  He’s played every minute of every game for two months and we make him turbo run everywhere?  Swish.

He would outscore entire teams in some games while we cackled in amazement.

As things go, I don’t remember ever playing this game beyond that spring.  I don’t own any system capable of playing it, but it’s gone with me on several moves and is currently in my living room.  Long live mystery Maryland bench player dude.