You know the thing in horror movies when you’re like, “the monster is dead!” and then you’re like, “wait but there’s still 30 minutes left,” and then you hear creepy music and then the monster jumps out from behind a tree? That’s UMBC in this tournament. They just. Won’t. Go. Away. (I mean that in the nicest possible way.)

ProfNet’s Dancin’ Dan Forbush elbowed his way to the top of the standings along with Leapfroggin’ Lauren Coffey of Cornell, but there in the shadows… UMBC was lurking. Jim Lord retained his spot in the standings, but even as John Fritz and Tim Ford faltered, Karin Readel and Kashka Donaldson slide right into leading spots.

In spite of the craziness of the past few rounds there is still plenty at stake in this tournament during Monday night’s championship game. While no one picked Texas Tech to win it all (almost literally no one. Back in November the odds of them winning were a 200-1), 23 players still have the opportunity to earn points with a UVA win.

The points get bigger as the tournament goes on, so it is possible to turn a busted first round bracket into gold, which is exactly what UMBC’s Todd “Addaway!” Haddaway has done. He went from a Round 1 ranking of 116 (out of 125) all the way to 7^th place. Plenty of others made big gains, but he wins the sleeping giant award, which actually brings us back to the beginning of this whole story and UMBC’s uncanny ability to bounce back. What’s in that Catonsville water?

Enjoy the Championship game!