Shimmering dots of rain darted like schools of fish through the lamplight last night as I walked to The Trinity, where a standing-room crowd peppered with Yale shirts and hats had convened to watch the Bulldogs take on Texas A&M. It was the first round of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament, and Yale, a 13-seed expected to fall to the fourth-seeded Aggies, already trailed by 10 as I claimed a spot opposite the bar. Conversions off an Aggie steal and Bulldog foul expanded that lead to 15, but a rainbow three and a powerful dunk soon swung the momentum Yale’s way.
Had this been UConn, either the men or the women, most fans would’ve been glued to the action. Only a few of the Yale fans were that invested. Rooting for a school with bigger priorities than basketball, even in late March, carries the dividend of being happy just to be there. In such cases, an invitation to the tourney, earned this time with an Ivy League championship, is a meal in itself. Any additional success, as they say, is gravy.
But the longer Yale stayed within striking distance, the more fans dared to imagine their dinner, like last year’s, smothered in savory brown sauce. With a few minutes left in the first half, Yale pulled within 5, drawing a school cheer from some hidden corner of the bar. By halftime, the crowd had grown in both size and attachment, and the Bulldogs had kept it close enough—an 11-point deficit measuring confidence, not talent—to keep hope alive.
As the game took a pause, I drove to the hole, ordering Trinity’s Irish Curry entree ($14) and a Headway on tap ($7). The stalwart local beer, brewed in Cheshire, tasted like fresh orange and mango juices perked up with a light spike of alcohol and a citrus peel finish. The curry, arriving piping-hot maybe 10 minutes later, was an enormous stew of mushrooms, broccoli, onions, green beans, peppers, squash and fries filling a soup plate the size of a pizza. The sauce, darkly earthy in the dim light of the bar, was tomato-sweet and salty, with a nice lace of cinnamon and a slow-building heat. Healthy, tasty and filling and offered at what feels like a very fair price these days, the dish was a delight and, for a while, almost completely distracted me from the game, even after play had resumed.
I checked back in with 12 minutes left, when a shot-of-life three cut A&M’s lead to 9. A few minutes later, a Bulldog attempting a layup had the ball “taken away from him like he was a little baby,” as the guy next to me drolly observed, but by the next commercial break, Yale was only down 6. And yet, a couple minutes after that, the Aggies had re-extended their lead to 11.
With four minutes on the clock, Yale assumed a full-court press. The game intensified, but the gap in points held. A weird technical foul on A&M’s coach led to an empty-court free throw attempt by John Poulakidas, Yale’s top scorer on the game and the season, who low-fived phantom teammates after making the shot.
But for those of us at The Trinity, there were no more illusions. Up 13 with 90 seconds left, A&M started moving the ball around just to run out the clock. With Yale’s defeat all but assured, a run-and-gun three from Poulakidas still drew a few cheers from around the bar, though.
In the end, the Bulldogs lost by 9, as a young woman who may very well personally know the players clapped and woo!-ed, then spoke to them as if they could hear her through the screens: “We’re so proud of you, guys!”
It wasn’t the end of the world. It was just the end of a game, with gratitude.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Image features spectators and cheerleaders rooting for the Yale men’s basketball team last year.
