It was a Saturday, it was holiday weekend, and it was (practically) the Jersey Shore. So it would only stand to reason that QMH would be part of an epic night.
 
Of course, QMH had no idea what was in store when he got in his car in the Poconos at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. All he knew is Google Maps told him the drive to Monmouth's campus—less than two miles from the Atlantic Ocean in West Long Branch, N.J.—was going to take about two hours, and he wanted to be there by about 5 to make sure men's basketball coach Steve Donahue would get to sit down with the ESPN3 announcers to talk about the Quakers ahead of that night's game with the Hawks. The combination of three games in Florida and the holiday had left no time for them to connect via phone, the usual protocol, so a pregame sit would have to do. QMH wanted to beat the team there so he could meet Coach coming off the bus and get him to the ESPN guys as quickly as possible.
 
There was a quick stop for some food, but QMH arrived to an empty parking lot right at 5 p.m. He found his way into the arena, and walked onto the floor. There, he saw assistant coaches Nat Graham and Ira Bowman, director of operations Brad Fadem, and athletic trainer Phil Samko.
 
QMH was late!
 
As it turned out, he wasn't. The ESPN guys showed up about 10 minutes later, they met with Coach, and everything was done by 5:30. That made QMH feel better; as any SID in the business will tell you, the closer it gets to game time the less you want to bother your head coach.
 
(You might be wondering why QMH was in the Poconos and not on the bus himself. The last several years, QMH has done a "Friendsgiving" with the lovely Ms. QMH and a few of her college friends. They come from Massachusetts, NYC, Philly and D.C., so the Poconos is a good "middle" point. They rent a house, cook up a big Thanksgiving meal, and watch movies. A lot of movies. It's fun, it's relaxing, and QMH thoroughly enjoys the respite every year, even when it's brief or broken up by games.)
 
With the Donahue-ESPN meeting done, all that was left was to wait for the Penn-Monmouth game to start. QMH figured the game would end around 9, he'd be done with postgame by 10 at the latest, and he'd be back in the Poconos by midnight. A little late, but not too bad.
 
Boy, was he ever wrong.
 
"A ticket to a sporting event is an investment carrying no guarantees. Will it be a good game or bad game? Who knows? You pay your money and you take your chances. But the great thing about being a sports fan is that you never know."
 
Bob Ryan wrote that in the Boston Globe several years ago, after he decided to go to an otherwise nondescript college basketball game and ended up witnessing a multi-overtime classic.
 
He probably would have written a similar lede had he been in OceanFirst Bank Center on Saturday night.
 
While the game itself will never be confused as a work of art, Saturday's men's basketball game between Penn and Monmouth will live on in the memory banks of anyone who was there—and several who weren't.
 
First, the game. It went four overtimes. Four. Of the 2,847 games Penn men's basketball had played prior to Saturday, only one of them had featured that many extra periods. It was played on March 13, 1920, and the Quakers beat Princeton, 26-23, to earn the title as champions of the East. That set Penn up for a best-of-three series with the "Western" champion, the University of Chicago, and after the Red and Blue lost to the Maroons in the Windy City in the opening game—the only loss the Quakers suffered all year in a 22-1 campaign—they came back to win 29-18 in Philadelphia. Two days after that, on a neutral court at Princeton, Penn defeated Chicago 23-21 and were crowned national champions.
 
Saturday's game didn't have nearly the stakes, but it was riveting nonetheless.
 
Two things were amazing about the game. First, it wasn't even close to the craziest college basketball game that day. Second, since he woke up on Sunday most of QMH's conversations about the night have had less to do with the game itself and more with how people around the world were getting their information as the drama unfolded.
 
During road games, QMH usually keeps the book and also handles the Penn Men's Basketball Twitter account. He usually runs his computer on the gym's wireless, but he always has his wireless hotspot handy in case of emergency. That said, the hotspot is usually a 50-50 proposition in a gym because it's indoors, the court might be dug down a bit, or Sprint service just might not be good.
 
On this night, QMH was on Monmouth's Guest wireless service, and it was working great. He was Tweeting without issue. He was building graphics for starters and halftime scores. So QMH was able to Tweet at will as Penn built up a 14-point halftime lead and expanded it to 15 when Ryan Betley's three-pointer swished through with 14:47 left for a 54-39 advantage.
 
Penn's next field goal after that came nine minutes and 39 seconds of game time later. In between, the Quakers managed to make four free throws. When Antonio Woods finally hit a jumper with 5:08 to play, Penn's lead was 60-53 and QMH felt like maybe the Quakers had survived the drought.
 
Nope. Penn wouldn't score another point until just 41 seconds remained, a foul shot by Jackson Donahue. Amazingly, the Quakers still had a five-point lead! Then Monmouth came down and immediately took a three-point shot…and made it. A Penn player fouled the shooter on the release. Another Penn player yelled out in general disgust, and was hit with a technical.
 
Now it was 61-59, Penn, and Monmouth was shooting four foul shots. The Hawks made the first three and took their first lead since 23-22. They missed the fourth, and Penn drove down and regained the lead when Max Rothschild's missed layup was tipped back up and in. (QMH can tell you the basket was credited to Eddie Scott, but he can't tell you whether it was Eddie who tipped it. There were that many hands involved in the play.) Monmouth missed a shot to regain the lead, and Max was fouled with just four seconds left. He missed his first shot, made the second, for a 64-62 lead.
 
Monmouth took a timeout to set up a final play; Penn called a timeout after seeing Monmouth's setup; then Monmouth threw the ball just short of half-court and took another timeout. Monmouth inbounded the ball to Austin Tilghman, who drove down the right side of the court and threw up a low-angled shot off the backboard.
 
It went in, of course.
 
At that point, QMH realized that writing this story would not happen until the game was over. So he put his energies into Twitter and keeping folks informed. He tweeted about the first overtime, with its four lead changes and three ties and Devon Goodman's missed three-point shot at the buzzer that would have won it. He Tweeted about the second overtime, with three more lead changes and three more ties. He Tweeted about Eddie's mammoth slam dunk, and the putback slam that forced a third overtime.
 
And then, QMH realized, he wasn't Tweeting.
 
He sent a Tweet but got a message: Internal Server Error. Tried again. Same thing. He checked his wireless, and realized he had been knocked off the Internet. So QMH fired up his wireless hotspot, which is when he found out that in the 50-50 proposition of good service in a gym he was in the wrong 50 on this night.
 
Frantic, QMH waited until a break in the action and sauntered over to his SID counterpart at Monmouth. Having been on the other side of these complaints too many times to mention, QMH took a delicate approach as he mentioned that he had been knocked off the wireless.
 
"I know," said the Monmouth SID, looking glum. "The Internet has gone off across the entire campus."
 
As the third OT continued, QMH looked across the court and saw Matt Leon on his cell phone. The radio had been knocked out, too, leaving Matt having to call the game via phone, handing it to Stan Pawlak when Stan had analysis to add. Only later that night would QMH find out the ESPN feed had gone out, too.
 
It turned out that, as more and more people were learning about the crazy goings-on on the court at Monmouth, their efforts to join in were being thwarted. No TV. Limited radio (the game was being broadcast Internet-only, of course, on XPN.org). No social media.
 
For the job he does and the areas of a game he controls, QMH cannot imagine a worse scenario.
 
So fans missed a third overtime that saw Penn lead by as much as four, only to see Tilghman strike with a last-second shot again, this time from beyond the arc, to force the fourth OT. Then they missed the Hawks using that momentum to score the first five points of the period, and seven of the first nine, only for Penn to score the final 10 as Monmouth missed their last six free throws down the stretch.
 
By the time the game ended, it was nearly 11 p.m. The Daily Pennsylvanian and Daily News were there, so QMH focused first on getting them with Coach Donahue and a few players for post-game interviews. When that was finally done, it was nearly 11:30.
 
QMH got back to his seat on the scorer's table. The Internet was still out. The Monmouth SID was still glum. Monmouth's operations person, himself a Philadelphia basketball guy, was apologizing profusely.
 
QMH could only think one thing: Thank goodness we won this game.
 
After that, QMH realized he needed to find a place to do his story. Without Internet, the gym was not an option. QMH packed up his stuff, walked to his car, and began driving back to the Garden State Parkway. Surely there had been a 24-hour diner he had passed on the way in, right?
 
After a mile or so, he turned a corner and saw the brightly lit "golden arches" of McDonald's. Yes! But then, it's almost midnight. Could it still be…yes! There are people inside!
 
QMH pulled into the parking lot, grabbed his bag, and walked to the door. And as he went to open it, he looked inside and laughed. There, in front of him, was Dick Jerardi, the Daily News' longtime college basketball reporter, who had been assigned to this game.
 
Saturday was DJ's final time covering a game as a Daily News reporter. Literally. He is retiring this week.
 
So QMH walked in and said the first thing that came to mind: "Fancy seeing you here." DJ, who has one of the best dispositions you'll ever meet, looked up and laughed. He made a crack about this being a perfect way to go out. He made light of the fact he had to basically re-write his story, from a Penn blowout to a 4-overtime thriller. He cursed that he had to describe all of it in just 450 words. Then he offered to pay for a meal, if QMH wanted to eat.
 
McDonald's at midnight? On this absurd night, it seemed absolutely perfect.
 
QMH finally left McDonald's at about 1:15 a.m. He had eaten a Quarter Pounder, some McNuggets, some fries, and filled his Coke cup twice. He had written most but not all of his recap, posting the stuff he figured was most important. He was entertained by two groups of highly intoxicated college-aged kids who rolled through while he worked.
 
QMH drove through the dark until he found the house in the Poconos at just about the two-hour mark. He walked in the door, opened his computer, and completed his recap. When he finally shut down, it was 4:30 a.m. and QMH was ready for bed.
 
It had been quite a night on the Jersey Shore.
 
***
 
Non-Penn Read of the Week: A story that has gained a lot of traction over the last few days, so you may have already seen it. However, still an incredible read and insight into an organization QMH cannot even believe exists. Yup, it's the Washington Post story about the woman who tried to dupe them into covering a false sexual assault claim against a politician.
 
#FightOnPenn